In this episode of the Functional Medicine Research podcast, I interview Dr. Nirala Jacobi in a discussion about the Bi-Phasic SIBO Diet.  I have successfully used the Bi-Phasic SIBO Diet with many of my patients so I was excited to cover this topic with Dr. Jacobi.  We discussed the specifics of the diet including the various phases, oxalates, salicylates, FODMAPs, vegetarian options, candida, histamine, fermented foods, MCAS (Mast Cell Activation Syndrome), SIFO (Small Intestinal Fungal Overgrowth), DAO, hydrogen sulfide, hypnotherapy, DNRS and much more.  If you have SIBO or are a practitioner working with SIBO patients, this is one interview you don't want to miss.

Dr. Hedberg: Well, welcome everyone to Functional Medicine Research. I'm Dr. Hedberg. And I'm really excited today to have Dr. Nirala Jacobi on the show. Dr. Jacobi is a board-certified naturopathic physician. She graduated from Bastyr in 1998 and practiced primary care in Montana for seven years before arriving in Australia. She's one of Australia's leading experts in the treatment of SIBO, which we're gonna be talking about today. And she's also the medical director for SIBOtest. And that's an online testing service for practitioners. She's very passionate about educating practitioners so much so that she founded The SIBO Doctor. This is an online professional education platform for functional digestive disorders. She lectures nationally and internationally about the assessment and treatment of SIBO. And she's the host of the popular podcast which I listened to, it's called The SIBO Doctor podcast. And she's the medical director and senior naturopathic physician at The Biome Clinic. It's center for functional digestive disorders in New South Wales. She's one of the co-founders of the Australian Naturopathic Summit. This is a biennial event that aims to promote and showcase the art and science of naturopathic medicine in Australia. She's also a member of the Gastroenterology Association of Naturopathic Physicians and the Natural Path and Herbalist Association of Australia. So, Dr. Jacobi, thanks for coming on.

Dr. Jacobi: Thanks for having me.

Dr. Hedberg: Great. So, we're gonna be focusing a lot today on treatment and approaches to SIBO and let's go ahead and begin with your bi-phasic SIBO diet. This is something that I've used in practice for years now and it's very, very effective. So why don't you walk us through the bi-phasic diet and why you created this for people at SIBO?

Dr. Jacobi: Well, first of all, thanks for that introduction and to let me know that it's working so well for you because it's always wonderful for me to hear from successful practitioners like yourself that it is indeed a really useful tool that I've created. So, that's really good for me to hear. So, the bi-phasic diet came about, because ultimately, I needed a little bit more... As a practitioner, I wanted to give more structure to a dietary approach rather than just this sort of spectrum of foods, some of which you should avoid and some of which you shouldn't avoid, which is of course, the FODMAP diet. And also what I found is that many people that were on FODMAPs, the Monash FODMAP diet, still had symptoms of SIBO. So, what I wanted to do was structure it and I used the SIBO-specific food guide, which is from Dr. Allison C. Becker, which is based on the FODMAP diet as well as the SIBO-specific... Sorry, the SCD, the Specific Carbohydrate Diet. And so what I wanted to do is take all of that information and put it in a format that allows practitioners to structure their treatment approach.

And so basically,