How a gut health clinic changed my life

The old adage says ‘you are what you eat’ – but there is almost daily new evidence that what’s inside us, the quality of the microbiomes in our body, can affect everything from our mental health to our immune system. Claire Irvin takes tough action on her tummy

It was Hippocrates who said, ‘All disease begins in the gut,’ yet over 2,000 years later, as science enables an ever-greater understanding of the microbiomes (collections of bacteria, fungi and microbes in our bodies which help fight germs, break down food and produce vitamins), you could be forgiven for thinking it’s a new medical discovery. Already this year, scientists have discovered more than 100 new types of bacteria or ‘gut microbiota’ in the human gut, and have made further advances in understanding how our guts, brains and microbiomes interact and affect everything from our immune systems to our moods.

Low levels of key bacteria in your gut can lead to depression, and there is now evidence that dementia starts in the gut microbiome. Bowel disorders, such as coeliac disease, irritable bowel syndrome or leaky gut, can mean you’re more likely to suffer from autoimmune diseases, depression and anxiety.

Symptoms of poor gut health include abdominal pain, bloating after meals, reflux or flatulence, but also less obvious ones, including headaches, fatigue, joint pain and immune system weakness. Gastrointestinal problems – so prevalent in our time-pressed, high-stressed, processed lives – are not just digestive issues. They can be the root cause for other physical and mental-health issues – not to mention making you fat.

And I should know. For several years, abdominal pain, bloating, restless nights and fatigue have become my norm. Long hours and a testing commute, breakfast and lunch on the go, a busy schedule fuelled by vending-machine caffeine hits, and a work life punctuated with business dinners and drinks receptions haven’t helped. A GP once identified my symptoms as IBS, and prescribed healthy eating and a balanced approach to work and home life.

Easier said than done. While psychologically I thrive on ‘busy-ness’ and a managed level of ‘healthy’ stress, even when I have detoxed and eaten puritanically healthily (dairy- and gluten-free meals, no caffeine and alcohol, snacking on fruit), the pain has often got unfathomably worse – a depressing cycle that has had me reaching for the cheese and wine before a fortnight was out.

But things came to a head last year when a health MOT pointed to a steady increase in weight and my symptoms were aggravated by pretty much anything. I felt constantly cowed by the pain – if I could have spent all day doubled up, I would have. I’d spend work meetings trying not to be distracted by stomach cramps, and have to take ‘a moment’ away from my desk several times a day. I’d lie in bed in the morning and immediately start stressing over what to wear to best mask the bloating, and what to eat to try to limit the pain. 

Thanks to thrice-weekly gym classes, I was physically fitter and stronger than I’d been since having children nine years earlier, yet my complexion was grey and puffy, my waistline a distant memory, and even when I felt at my most relaxed, family and friends would ask why I was ‘edgy’. (NB: if there’s anything guaranteed to push someone who looks on the edge, over it, it’s this.) What they meant, of course, was that I constantly looked (and felt) pained, had very little patience, didn’t love being cuddled and wasn’t – well, shall we say, very fragrant company of an evening. 

Over a cuppa (green tea, since you ask), a friend regaled me about a transformative health kick at a Lanserhof clinic. She too had suffered problems with her gut, though comparatively mild next to the ones I was experiencing, and I burst into tears at the realisation of how bad I felt. And so I did something I’d always mentally filed under ‘for the rich, bored and spoilt’: booked myself into the same hotel, hundreds of miles away from home and family, in the pursuit of my own well-being.

The Lanserhof Lans is a luxury modernist bolthole nestled in the Tyrolean mountainside of Austria. Lanserhof practises the LANS Med Concept, a diagnostic programme based on the renowned physician FX Mayr’s approach to gut health that combines holistic medicine with regeneration and prevention.

Since its launch more than 30 years ago, the brand has opened two further resorts and a medical gym in Germany – and this May will see the opening of a new London outpost, Lanserhof at The Arts Club. Set to be one of the world’s foremost state-of-the-art medical gyms, this facility will be the first of its kind to offer members an MRI scan as part of its training programme, which includes bespoke menus, cryotherapy chambers, butler service and price-on-application memberships. It promises to be the spiritual home of a whole new tribe of gut-health devotees focused on how good a better functioning gut can make them feel.

‘Self-care is healthcare,’ my friend reminded me by text, as I boarded the plane to Innsbruck wondering what the hell I was letting myself in for. ‘You’re doing this for them,’ my husband reassured me, as I phoned home during my airport transfer, my children’s reproachful farewell faces fresh in my mind. ‘Maybe this won’t be so bad after all,’ I thought on arrival, as I inhaled a breath of soft, pine-scented mountain air.

However, my first reaction to Lanserhof was dismay. There was a dining room – and people in it were actually eating. What about the fasting I’d come here for?

My confusion continued through the first evening. Emerging from my cocoon-like bedroom, I was shown to my seat (guests are allocated a seat on a table for four for the duration of their stay, to foster an atmosphere of conviviality but presumably to encourage chewing not chatting) and served three courses of super-healthy but very definitely solid fine dining: soup, fish and vegetables, and fruit.

The next morning, my regeneration started in earnest. After a medical examination and analysis (I do love an analysis), each guest gets their own programme based on the six pillars of modern FX Mayr therapy: rest, cleansing, training, substitution, exercise and mindfulness. In other words, a holistic health-over that is designed so you can continue it at home.

My programme comprised an array of treatments and analytics combining natural healing techniques with the latest medicine and nutritional insights. The first step is the detoxification and deacidification of the body, to best enable it to regenerate and respond to different treatments.

Each programme works alongside optional group classes such as Pilates, yoga, talks on gut health and early morning ‘wake up in nature’ walks – nature is central to the Lanserhof approach, and gentle gymnastics plus a forest power walk are a wonderful way to wake up, particularly if you have no breakfast to look forward to. 

Food – or lack thereof – punctuates the day (and your mind), with predestined appointments with supplements (Epsom salts first thing to flush out your system; basenpulver alkaline powder three times a day to reset your alkaline levels; bitters – solutions that support your digestive function by stimulating bitter receptors on the tongue, stomach, gall bladder and pancreas – before you eat to ensure adequate salivation to digest your food). Clear vegetable soup is served between 10am and 12pm to great excitement. (It’s savoury! It’s salty! It’s not tea!)

Oh yes, the tea. Tea is a big deal at Lanserhof. It comes in lots of different varieties, it’s available from self-serve stations around the clock, it’s delicious and I couldn’t get enough of it – apart from during soup time, of course, and mealtimes: you’re not allowed to drink half an hour before, during or after meals, to avoid diluting stomach acids and inhibiting digestion.

As it turned out, my programme, called the Energy Cuisine plan, did include food – albeit gluten-, dairy- and histamine-free. Breakfast is a menu of carbohydrate ‘chewers’ such as buckwheat toast or a spelt roll served with avocado purée or non-dairy ‘cheese’; lunch is a jacket potato and the same spreads. No dinner means your body has time to fully digest what you’ve eaten.

Each mouthful is meant to be chewed 30 to 40 times to encourage saliva to aid digestion. This also relieves the stomach, as it doesn’t have to work as hard to break down the food you’ve eaten, whereas hasty eating can be damaging and lead to uncomforatble bloating. For the first couple of days, this feels very odd. After that, it’s addictive. (If not very sociable.)

The days that followed were full of discoveries. Appointments with your personal doctor double up as health therapy sessions. Not eating in the evening was surprisingly easy. And once I’d got through day three, when my caffeine/histamine/ sugar withdrawal symptoms gave me the worst headache I’ve ever suffered (it turns out there’s a – secret recipe – supplement to cure that, too), I woke up hungry but full of energy.

Many of the treatments to aid digestion are hi-tech and super-specialised: cryotherapy (spending three minutes at a time in sub-zero chambers ranging from -10 to -100 degrees celsius), Kniepp (alternating a warm foot bath with a very cold one) and stomach massage. However you can learn circulation-boosting techniques – a cold blast after your hot shower or a hot-water bottle wrapped in a damp cloth and applied to your abdomen for 20 relaxing minutes – and use them at home.

There were other life-changing insights to be had. Tested for intolerances, I discovered off-the-scale fructose malabsorption (no wonder my fruit-full healthy-eating plan always failed). Dairy protein and gluten are not my friends either. The puffiness? Histamine intolerance (look it up: it’s everywhere, including all fermented foods, tomatoes, and – eek – wine). Onions and garlic were once the bedrock of my home cooking – not any more. And while calories are no longer the focus of healthy eating, it turns out that on an average day without high-impact exercise, I can only burn 1,500 of them. No wonder, then, that during my short stay I averaged a weight loss of just over 1lb a day.

Read more: I thought I had a gluten intolerance – until a new gut test transformed the way I eat

After just 24 hours, I had the feeling of being able to stand up straight – the first time, I realised, for years that I’d not been cowed by internal discomfort. After 36 hours, a fellow guest proclaimed I looked like ‘a different Claire’. I certainly felt like one. The tea and easily digested food – along with the nightly hot-water bottle – eased my insides. My bloated tummy deflated like a balloon (and almost as quickly). I felt light: in body and in spirit.

You can see why many of my fellow guests had been before, some returning two or three times a year. Talk was of the debilitating diseases their stays had reversed or cured –diabetes, cirrhosis, colitis. There were whispers of even more serious ailments that had been miraculously reversed.

Thanks to the Energy Cuisine plan, continuing the good work when I left was straightforward. I’ve reintroduced some histamine and fructose gradually. And, as I was told, ‘it’s impossible to overeat if you chew correctly’. Alcohol is now an occasional treat, not a daily pick-me-up, and I sleep the better for it. Shortening the amount of time my digestive system is active by eating two meals a day is easier than you might think – my husband and I now skip our evening meal every Monday to Thursday.

I try to follow a healthy-eating plan, but it’s neither obsessive nor restricting in the way other diets have been – cutting out a few evening meals means it matters less if I fall off the wagon for a weekend or even a holiday, and has helped maintain my original Lanserhof weight loss.

This was also the first winter I didn’t succumb to a chest infection. My stomach rumbled in a meeting this week, but I didn’t inwardly flinch, waiting for the cramps that used to follow; I was just hungry – if happier and healthier than I can remember being. And cuddlier…

Read more about gut health:

Seven things you can do right now to improve your gut health

Antibiotics can harm your gut health - here’s how to undo the damage

How looking after your gut could transform your health ​

Seven nights at Lanserhof Lans starts from £3,670, inclusive of the LANS Med Basic Package and single occupancy in a double bedroom; lanserhof.com/en