BiotiQuest® Gut Health & Probiotics Blog

The holiday season is nearly upon us, and while this year may look a little different than usual, there are some practical ways to support your health and feel your best! Keeping your immune system strong is more important now than ever, and in a season when sugar, alcohol and other stressors are abundant, there are some simple ways to nourish your gut without...

Throughout the holiday season, you may find yourself cozying up with friends and family, leaning into year-end festivities. It’s a time to celebrate, which often means an abundance of festive food and drinks.  But if you’re trying to enjoy holiday meals while managing diabetes, improving your health or healing your gut, this can be a tricky time to navigate. Said celebrations are not very blood sugar-friendly, thanks...

Current research shows a connection between the gut microbiome and sleep patterns, and evidence suggests that improving your gut's healthy bacteria can lead to more restful sleep. Read on to discover how probiotics for sleep can help lower your stress, activate opiate receptors for better quality sleep, and help you get more rest.

The signaling that occurs between the microbiome and the brain is often mediated by compounds produced by the gut microbiome. This signaling could result in a more relaxed sleep cycle, or it could adversely affect it. Here’s a closer look at how the gut-brain axis impacts sleep quality.  What is the Gut Brain Axis?   Source The gut-brain axis refers to the two-way communication...

Up to 70 million Americans struggle with sleeping, according to research by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It’s a critical issue, as sleep is one of the most important pillars of good health. If you’re not getting enough, or your sleep is low quality, it can cause extreme fatigue, brain fog, increased stress, irritability, weight gain, and is linked to many...

The prevalence of metabolic syndrome among US adults is staggering. Research shows that more than a third of US adults met the criteria for metabolic syndrome between 2011 to 2016. Since the prevalence of metabolic syndrome significantly increases with age, that number is likely even worse by now. Metabolic syndrome can have rippling effects on your health, body, and mental health. It can be...

Many years ago when my husband, John, was first diagnosed with Parkinson’s I instinctively knew that there was a connection to the food we were eating. This started a long journey for me, digging into our food supply and the herbicides, pesticides and preservatives that are used in our industrial agriculture operations.  Most media was not covering these significant issues and in fact when...

April has been designated Parkinson’s Awareness month.  Every year we see a number of new therapeutic announcements and research projects in the month of April. These announcements can be both exciting and frustrating, because it takes a long time for new research to make it all the way to the clinical treatment phase.   The microbiome continues to be a keen area of research interest...

For many of us, it seems like the older we get the more health issues we have. In our 20s, we have fewer health complaints so routine check-ups often come back clear or we don’t even bother to get them. In recent years, by the mid-30s, sometimes earlier, the story is changing rapidly. The signs of metabolic disease have started to appear at younger...

I was honored to recently be a guest on the Life's Best Medicine Podcast with Dr. Brian Lenzkes! In this conversation, we discuss the microbiome triggers for diseases, the multitude of factors that affect the gut microbiome, learning to feed good bacteria and starve bad bacteria with diet and lifestyle changes, mannitol and its effect on the gut, toxoplasmosis, where to go for a...

Why is it important to understand risk factors connecting metabolic syndrome to heart disease? Heart disease is the single leading cause of death among men and women in the U.S. According to the Centers for Disease Control, a person dies from cardiovascular disease every 36 seconds. Put another way, each year cardiovascular disease is the cause of one out of every four deaths. In...

Considering the fact that roughly 1.9 billion adults are overweight, it’s clear that many of us struggle to meet our weight loss goals. Several factors influence an inability to lose weight, and understanding the underlying reasons why it can be challenging is helpful.  Sometimes difficulty losing weight may be due to something called metabolic syndrome.  About one-third of the US population, equally distributed across...