Dr. Trisha Pasricha

And actually, interestingly, the pathway that I described about alpha-synuclein protein misfolding and traveling up the vagus nerve in Parkinson's disease is actually very well understood in some aspects.

We have an even poorer understanding in Alzheimer's about how these two things are linked.

But we know that there seems to be a strong association there.

We know that there's an association there between GI symptoms and autism, for example, which typically has been thought of as a disorder that lives in the brain.

But, you know, if you know anyone with autism or you treat patients with them as I do, they have very severe GI symptoms.

And of course, the question is why?

And what is causing what?

And I think there's a lot in the literature that is now pointing towards it's the brain and the gut that is starting and feeding some of these issues.

Well, I think the first and foremost thing is to listen to your body and not to treat pooping like some big shameful entity.

People put off pooping or they're embarrassed to talk about it with their provider and they're going to miss an opportunity to just have an easy, effortless bowel movement when they do that.

So the very first step is to just not feel embarrassed about it.

You know, like if you're at a friend's house and that's when you have to go, just go for goodness sakes.

That's one thing.

Then I think people need to

Think about their posture, change their posture, think about their diet, and change their diet.

All of these things contribute to how we're having a healthy, safe, socially appropriate bowel movement.

I think some of the biggest and most hardest things about our own lives to change is our diet.

And having a healthy bowel movement is partially, yes, ramping up fiber.

We always talk about fiber.

And certainly we're not meeting our fiber goals for the most part, a lot of us.