FF 11: ‘It’s all about the gut’ with naturopath Jasmine Polley

Want to learn about baby gut health? In this episode of Flourishing Families, Dorte Bladt talks to Charlestown Naturopath, Jasmine Polley, about a healthy gut for kids. Jasmine Polley shares her professional insights about the connection between a healthy gut and a healthy body and brain. You will understand the importance of feeding your gut bacteria to help them thrive and the intricacies of pre and probiotics. Enjoy! Intro: Flourishing Families with Dorte Bladt, the Switched On Kids chiropractor and her passionate friends sharing the secret of inspiring wellness to help your families thrive. Dorte Bladt: Welcome, Jasmin Polley. We’ve got Jasmin – she is a local Charlestown naturopath. I’m really excited to have a chat to you. Jasmin Polley: Hi, Dorte. Thanks for inviting me on to your podcast. Dorte Bladt: My pleasure! So tell us a little bit about yourself. Who are you? What do you do? Jasmin Polley: Well, I am a biomedical naturopath. I started about 15 years ago and I’m currently still studying. I think I’ve always studied, but moving more into the functional medicine side of things as well. So I specialise quite heavily in gut and digestive health as well as hormone and thyroid imbalances. Dorte Bladt: Interesting. Can I just be – because I’m not the smartest person in the world – what’s the difference between a naturopath and a biomedical, whatever you said you were, practitioner, and functional medicine? Jasmin Polley: Well, there’s a lot of overlap there because my view on things has been always looking at the underlying cause and having a good framework where to investigate that in each person that comes in. Functional medicine provides more of a framework around that. So, it’s very evidence-based and it gives us a really good way of digging deeper and finding those Achilles’ heels that people might have that’s their imbalance and where some of their health issues may come from. Dorte Bladt: So does that mean different testing? Jasmin Polley: Yes. Dorte Bladt: How would naturopath testing compare to a functional medicine? I mean, I know it’s different from person to person. Jasmin Polley: Well, it is very different from person-to-person so it’s a difficult thing to say. I do use quite a lot of normal pathology. Not so much with kids, though, because I don’t like to put kids through unnecessary blood tests. Dorte Bladt: They hate them. Jasmin Polley: Yes, but as well as other functional medicine tests. Then obviously a big part of it is a really good case history taking, so really digging deeper, finding out when did their actual health imbalance start, because I see a lot of these symptoms as being an imbalance in what the body wants to restore to normal. So, if we can adjust that, then the body has got an amazing ability to be able to heal itself. Dorte Bladt: Yeah, it’s amazing, isn’t it? So, just fill me in a little bit about… you said, so you like, if we’re looking at kids anyway. Jasmin Polley: Yeah, sure. Dorte Bladt: Looking at their guts. What does gut health have to do with the health of a person? Jasmin Polley: I think gut health is paramount because our gut is where we’re receiving the nutrients into our body. It’s also where our immune system is trained. So, most of our immune system hangs out in the gut, especially when it comes to kids – their immune system is developing and this is happening in utero and through the breast milk as well. There’s a big priming of that immune system that’s happening in the early years.