The Ageless and Awesome Podcast

Gut Health & Glowing Skin in Perimenopause: The Inside-Out Secret

• Susie Garden • Episode 305

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If your skin feels unpredictable in perimenopause and menopause — breakouts one week, dryness the next, redness that won’t calm down — your gut might be the missing link. In this episode of the pod, I’m breaking down the fascinating gut–skin axis and showing you why your digestion has everything to do with your complexion.

We’ll explore why gut health often becomes more sensitive in perimenopause and menopause, the biggest food and lifestyle triggers that could be sabotaging your skin, and simple swaps you can start making today. Plus, I’ll share my go-to “Skin Smoothie” recipe — a delicious, anti-inflammatory way to feed both your gut and your skin.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

  • Why perimenopause can make your gut (and skin) more reactive
  • The top gut-skin triggers I see in clinic — sugar, alcohol, processed foods, and low fibre
  • How poor digestion and leaky gut contribute to breakouts, redness, and dullness
  • 4 skin-loving food groups that support a calm, radiant complexion
  • My simple Skin Smoothie recipe for daily gut + skin nourishment
  • How inside-out strategies can reduce your reliance on expensive creams or cosmetic fixes

Here's the recipe for my Skin Loving Smoothie:

•1 cup coconut water
•1 handful spinach or kale
•½ cup berries
•1 tbsp chia seeds
•1 tbsp flax or hemp seeds
•Scoop of unflavoured, non-WPI protein powder

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Speaker 1:

Hi, I'm Susie Garden and this is the Ageless and Awesome podcast. I'm an age-defying naturopath and clinical nutritionist and I'm here to bust myths around women's health and aging so that you can be ageless and awesome in your 40s, 50s and beyond. The Ageless and Awesome podcast is dedicated to helping women through perimenopause and menopause with great health, a positive mindset and outrageous confidence. Hit, subscribe or follow now and let's get started. Hello, gorgeous one, and welcome to this week's episode of the Ageless and Awesome podcast.

Speaker 1:

This week I'm doing episode two, I guess, of my skin series. So in last week's episode we explored why perimenopause and menopause changes your skin, the hormones, the stress, all of the things, and today we're going to talk about something that doesn't get nearly enough attention and that is the link between your skin health and your gut health, because the truth is and maybe you've experienced this if your gut isn't happy, your skin will tell you through breakouts, redness, dryness, even flare-ups like rosacea and eczema and many others, which I'm going to talk about today. Some of the research I did in preparing for this episode really surprised me in terms of how much research there is actually now on the impact of the gut and the gut-skin axis which we're going to get into, because once you understand the gut-skin axis, you're going to see your skin and the impact of your gut health on your skin in a whole new light. So let's get started. So your gut and your skin are actually constantly started. So your gut and your skin are actually constantly communicating. It's crazy, right, constantly communicating.

Speaker 1:

If you think of your gut as the soil and your skin as a plant, if the soil is depleted of nutrients, full of weeds, the plant will struggle to thrive. And it's a similar sort of situation with your gut health. Thinking of that as the soil. If that is depleted of nutrients and you've got a bit of overgrowth, for example, of not so good bacteria they're the weeds then your skin is really going to see it. And in peri and menopause your gut can become more sensitive and many of my clients that come to see me are having issues such as bloating, constipation, pain, diarrhea, maybe their gallbladder is playing up a bit, maybe other things in related to digestion. So if that's happening to you, and even if you don't have symptoms, often you can have stuff going on in the gut. That's why it's so important to actually be proactive about it.

Speaker 1:

But thanks to hormonal changes as well, and stress and shifts in digestion that will often show up on our skin. And when you think about it, the skin is our largest organ and guess what? It's microbe levels, so the skin microbiome are second only to the gut, which I was actually really surprised to read. That, I mean, it makes sense. Your skin has the contact with the environment, and I should remember back to my operating theater days, because we always were. That's what made me into a germphobe, because we learned a lot about how much bacteria, fungi, other things are sitting on the skin at all times and even though you can't see it, and some of it is beneficial, some of it is not. So let's talk a little bit more about that. If we're looking at the gut itself, if you have poor digestion so, as I mentioned before, regular bloating, constipation, diarrhea, food intolerances, stress, poor sleep fewer nutrients are going to be absorbed generally, but also fewer nutrients absorbed for skin repair specifically. So that's one aspect.

Speaker 1:

If you have a gut bacteria imbalance and many of us do many of us have had issues with infections, for example, that have required antibiotics and you absolutely need them if you need them, but if you've had lots of antibiotics over your lifetime. So this is a lifetime thing and I always ask my clients, you know, think back to childhood. Did you have lots of bouts of ear infections? Did you have grommets? Did you have bouts of tonsillitis? Undoubtedly, if you're in peri or menopause now, you would have been in that era where antibiotics were prescribed for all of those things very, very regularly. So you may have still an impact from that 20, 30, 40 years later of that gut bacteria being impacted by antibiotics. And also, if you've had a serious illness, if you've had lots of stress in your life, if you have had undiagnosed celiac disease, for example, late diagnosis of celiac disease you've probably got a gut bacteria imbalance.

Speaker 1:

There are so many reasons that people have gut bacteria imbalances, but if you do, you're probably prone to more breakouts. You probably get irritation in your skin, redness, maybe you experience dullness in the skin, and research shows that the gut bacteria imbalance can be implicated in a myriad of skin issues, from psoriasis, contact dermatitis, skin cancer, eczema and also dandruff, acne and more. This doesn't just impact you in peri and menopause either. This can be at any time of your life. So there are very specific bacterias that the researchers have noted that are more prevalent on the skin of people that have a lot of these medical or sorry skin conditions. So that's how they're making those links. And the thing is with research you don't just kind of show it or prove it once. It has to be done over and over again for it to be taken seriously and go more from theory to fact. So this is really interesting and research-backed stuff which I love learning about.

Speaker 1:

And as well as poor digestion and gut bacteria imbalance, some people may have leaky gut. So leaky gut is when you have the medical term for that is increased intestinal permeability. So if you think about when we eat something, we digest it down into little molecules of like vitamin D and vitamin C and iron et cetera, and then those molecules go through your intestinal wall because it is permeable, they go through the intestinal wall and go into your bloodstream and where they need to go to do the job that they do. When you have increased intestinal permeability or leaky gut and that can be caused by stress, it can be caused by intense exercise, it can be caused by food intolerances, certain medications like non-steroidal anti-inflammatories, inflammatory antibiotics et cetera then the permeability of the intestine increases and so bigger clumps of molecules can get through. And there's also a theory that perhaps some of the microbiome might get through into your bloodstream and that activates your immune system because obviously those things are not meant to be there in your bloodstream, and so the immune system activates. So you get this systemic inflammation driven by the gut and this immune system activation that will absolutely impact your skin.

Speaker 1:

So leaky gut is something that we can test. We do a urine test for that. If you think you might have leaky gut, it's a good idea to speak to a healthcare professional that might be able to assess you further and if they believe testing is warranted, that's absolutely something that a nutritionist, a naturopath, gp et cetera can order. And it is not covered under sort of Medicare if you're in Australia, but it's not that expensive actually to do that test if you're in Australia, but it's not that expensive actually to do that test. So you know, if you think about, if you've noticed, if you have a weekend of like partying wine, pizza, sugar, et cetera your skin might look dull, might be red, you might wake up with some skin breaking out. That's your gut-skin connection in action. And there's this it's constantly communicating. It's not just communicating when something's going wrong. There's this bi-directional communication happening. So something I know this might sound a little bit overwhelming, but essentially, as long as you're looking after the gut, you'll be looking after your gut-skin access. You'll be looking after your gut-bone access. You'll be looking after your gut bone axis, You'll be looking after your gut brain axis. There's also a gut lung axis, so gut health, at the end of the day, that is the ultimate that you need to be looking after.

Speaker 1:

So I wanted to talk about what are some common gut skin triggers and these are probably my top four that I see most often impacting skin and causing some issues in perimenopause and menopause. One of them is sugar. I mean again, this can happen at any age, but sugar is really a big driver of inflammation. It can spike insulin, it worsens breakouts. I don't think that is going to be a surprise to anybody, but we know that this is a real problem. So if you can avoid that trigger as much as possible, your skin will feel and look so much better. Alcohol is another big one, because alcohol is obviously very dehydrating, so your skin will look dehydrated if you drink a lot of alcohol. It disrupts your gut bacteria.

Speaker 1:

Interestingly, I was on the phone to a friend of mine this morning that I haven't spoken to for a while and she's given up drinking as much as she used to and she said to me the absolute difference in her gut health was so noticeable to her and she wasn't someone that really took a lot of notice of these things, but she said, wow, the difference in dropping alcohol was massive in terms of gut health. The other thing with alcohol is it impacts your liver detoxification and essentially, when you have alcohol, once the liver, you know, detects that other things processes stop, like digestion. A lot of that stops because the alcohol is a toxin, so your body will prioritize getting rid of that. So things that will impact your hormone balance, because your hormones are also detoxified through the liver. So it it impacts your skin in a number of ways, both through the hormonal pathway and also the gut skin. So, as my friend was saying to me this morning, she's found so many great either low alcohol alternatives or just alternative drinks. I had another client last week talking to me about alcohol alternatives. So there are some drinks around that are basically no sugar but they've got some herbs in them, which I think is fantastic, like adaptogen herbs and things like that that could be an option to have instead of alcohol For me personally, I just have. If I have a drink or two, then I'll be on soda water or sparkling water because I enjoy drinking that and I know it's still going to be really hydrating for me.

Speaker 1:

Having my number three of the biggest gut triggers I see is highly processed foods, so foods that are packaged, foods that contain additives, certain oils, chemicals that inflame your system, and this is really important to learn how to read labels, because there are additives in foods that you really wouldn't expect there to be. I even had a client, probably a couple of years ago now we were talking about spices and things and curry powders and she had Keen's curry powder and I looked at the label of that online. I went oh, that doesn't just have spices in it, that has other things. So that really shocked me because certainly, growing up, I think everybody had in their pantry some Keen's curry powder, but yeah, it's actually got additives in it that probably aren't ideal for everybody. So learning to read labels, to know that your food is actually food and not processed food, is super important, and that's not just for skin health, that's for weight control, it's for hormone balance, for lowering your cancer risk. We know that processed foods are a massive issue on human health, so trying to avoid them as much as possible is a fantastic practice to start getting into, and you can do it step by step. You don't have to go in and throw everything out in your pantry, but really just stop buying it and start really focusing on natural foods, whole foods, because that is going to serve you and your family's health well for decades.

Speaker 1:

Number four is fiber. So having a low fiber diet is again a skin trigger. It means a slower detox, slower hormone clearance, more congestion showing up in the skin. Really important to make sure you're getting enough fiber every single day, and you can generally get that from food. You could take supplements, but I would really work on getting good food into the body as a priority, unless you have pretty specific sort of gut issues that really need addressing, like chronic constipation. So let's talk about some of the skin loving gut foods that I recommend, because you know what the good news is just a few swaps can make a real difference to your skin is just a few swaps can make a real difference to your skin.

Speaker 1:

Now a little caveat here. Remember this is general information. This may not be suitable for everyone. If you've been a long time listener, you know I really am a champion of personalized nutrition. So when I have clients in clinic, I'm not recommending generic solutions like what I'm about to say. I'm recommending personalized nutrition for the individual and their individual concerns. So just remember that, that you might try some of these and feel better, which is fantastic, but you may even get to the next level of better if it's a personalized prescription of food. Even get to the next level of better if it's a personalized prescription of food. So probably my number one is omega-3 fatty acids to calm inflammation.

Speaker 1:

Inflammation is something that is the root cause of almost every physical and mental health condition, so reducing inflammation, inflammation in the body is really important, and omega-3s are things like flax seeds, walnuts, oily fish, like salmon. This all calms inflammation, which is going to help you beyond your skin health, but it will definitely help your skin. It'll help with, particularly because of the oil content, help with plumping, hydration, calming redness. I cannot speak highly enough of omega-3s. Also including fermented foods. Again, this is a very general recommendation.

Speaker 1:

For many people I do not recommend including fermented foods, particularly for gut issues, because we want to go way more specific with our probiotics. So foods like sauerkraut, kefir, kimchi are fantastic for many people and they support the gut microbiome Generally. We're only going to have small amounts of these anyway, so get quality, but yeah, definitely, and always read your labels with it. Boost fiber, as I mentioned before, so you can use things like oats, chia seeds, legumes like lentils, kidney beans, chickpeas, things like that. All help to detox hormones and toxins, help with improving constipation, things like that. The good prebiotics chia seeds also includes omega-3s, so you're getting extra bang for your buck there. Also, focus on polyphenols, so things like green tea, berries, brightly colored berries, olive oil. They will protect your collagen, which is really important. So there are four things Omega-3s, fermented foods if you don't have other gut issues going on fiber and polyphenols.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to keep it super simple. Today, one of my favorite easy ways to feed your gut and your skin is with a skin smoothie. So I'm going to give you a simple recipe. So if you're not driving and you do have a pen and pad handy or you've got your computer open, you want to type this out? Then go for it. I'll try and remember to put this in the show notes as well, but here's this simple recipe. So about 250 mils of coconut water, handful of spinach or kale works really well. Any sort of dark leafy green would be fantastic. About half a cup of frozen berries. Tablespoon of chia seeds I always put the chia seeds into the coconut water first, so when I'm loading up my blender, water goes in first, then the chia seeds, then my next ingredient, which would be flax seeds or hemp seeds.

Speaker 1:

If you're going to use flax seeds, then I would definitely grind them before you add them. Also, I said the frozen berries. I think yeah, and a scoop of unflavored, non-whey protein powder and make it just a really simple protein powder no additives. The only additives I have in my protein powder is it does have some digestive enzymes in it, which I love. So having an unflavored protein powder like a pea protein, brown rice protein sometimes they're mixed together.

Speaker 1:

Again, this is not individualized advice. Obviously, if you have your own food intolerances or other stuff going on, you want to use things that are going to be ideal for you. The other thing is I'll probably put in about one or two tablespoons of cacao because I like chocolate, so it's a great way to get chocolate. So blend this up. It's anti-inflammatory. It's hydrating, gives your skin nutrients it can actually use. All right. So I think I'm going to finish off the pod there. This information I'm giving you now is just the tip of the iceberg.

Speaker 1:

As I said, the more I'm researching this as I'm building my upcoming eight-week group program called In your Skin, the more I'm reading about it, the more excited I'm getting, because I'm learning so much as well and I cannot wait to share it with you. In the program, I'm dedicating a whole week to gut health and I'm actually thinking maybe I'll even make it close to two weeks, because when you calm inflammation in the body and you support your digestion, you will see a benefit in your skin very quickly, and it will also really help with your hormones as well. So you're getting really good. As I say, bang for your buck. I actually don't like using that phrase, but it is what it is.

Speaker 1:

So in In your Skin, we'll be going through recipes, easy swaps and strategies to fit this into your busy life. So if you're not already on the wait list, now is the time. I'm hopefully going to have a link to pop in the show notes If I don't just message me on Instagram at theperimenopausepath, or email hello at suzygardencom and ask to be popped on the wait list, so you'll be first to hear when the doors open and get the foundational pricing. It'll never be as easy to access this program as the initial round that I do. Thanks so much for joining me on the Ageless and Awesome podcast. If you liked this episode, please make sure you click the little plus button if you're on Apple Podcasts, or the follow button if you're on Spotify, so that you get each new episode delivered to you every single week. If you feel like writing me a five-star review, you would absolutely make my day. If you found this episode resonated with you, head over to my Instagram and DM me at theperimenopausepath. I would love to connect with you.

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Susie Garden

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