” The Road to Better Health

What Is Your Gut

When talking about a healthy gut, people are actually referring to what is called a microbiome. Your microbiome is the diverse population of trillions of microbes that live in your body. This part of your body controls how healthy you are both physically and mentally.

The idea that the bacteria that live in your gastrointestinal tract plays an important role in the health of your brain is now a major focus of research and interest.

Your microbes are essential to the health of your gut and play a part in your physical health. The microbiome’s role in promoting good health may now extend to the health of your brain.

If you personally deal with depression, your diet may have more of an influencing factor than you realized.

The microbiome consists of thousands of different types of bacteria, both ‘good’ and ‘bad.’ A healthy microbiome favors beneficial bacteria and prevents too much ‘bad’ bacteria which could harm your health.

It’s crucial to have a lot of beneficial bacteria and for this eat a whole, healthy well-balanced diet full of probiotic and prebiotic foods.

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The Beginnings

Where does it all start you may wonder…well, it all starts with the beginning and that is when we are born.

We “inherit” bacteria from our mothers when being born, vaginally that is as when it comes to a c-section things are different.

Have you ever hear of the term Virgin Gut ? The gut of a baby is immunologically and microbiologically naive at birth. Another important characteristic of the newborn gut is that, until around 6 months of age, it is “open”. This means the spaces between the cells of the small intestine will allow large molecules to pass directly into their bloodstream.

Consequently, as well as the beneficial antibodies in breast milk passing into baby’s bloodstream, allergy-triggering proteins from other foods, disease-causing pathogens and other bad things can also pass through.

Perhaps the most interesting fact of all is that you are, at best, only 10 percent human. The rest of you is made up of bacterial cells. There are 10-100 trillion bacterial cells in your gut. More than 1000 different species and 7000 different strains. These beneficial bacteria strengthen the immune system so that in the long term it can fend off chronic health problems like food allergies and asthma. 

Diet provides nutrients for the maintenance and growth of bacterial communities and acts as a selective factor for differential bacterial colonization.

If breast milk is all that has ever entered baby’s gut, it retains much of its sterility and is often referred to as a “virgin gut”.

Only small amounts of formula or solid foods can cause a shift that destroys the virgin gut environment, changing acidity and destroying the immunoglobulins that coat mucosal surfaces making them more permeable. This is why mother’s milk is so important in the first months of a babie’s life but we’ll discuss that more in depth in another article.

How To Promote a Healthy Gut

1. Eat Prebiotic and Probiotic Foods

Probiotic foods contain live bacteria whereas prebiotic food contains ingredients like certain types of fiber that nurture the growth of bacteria. Basically, prebiotics are the food for the good bacteria that your body needs for probiotics to actually help your gut lining.

Foods high in prebiotics include:

• Oats
• Bananas
• Chickpeas, lentils, and beans
• Asparagus
• Artichokes
• Garlic
• Nuts

2. Consume Plenty of Fruits, Veggies and Dietary Fiber

A diet consisting of a wide variety of whole foods such as vegetables, fruit, and whole grains can lead to a more diverse gut flora.

Generally, a diverse and rich gut flora is considered a healthy one. When your gut flora, body pH, and body systems become unbalanced, your candida levels can get out of control. This can lead to fatigue, skin issues, and sugar cravings to name just a few.

3. Cut Down On Sugar

Cutting down on sugar can be tough. It’s in nearly everything we eat nowadays; making it hard to avoid. To start cutting down on sugar, eliminate fizzy drinks first. Then move onto candy and processed sweets. It’s hard to remove sugar all in one go, so it’s best to start slowly.

Eating lots of sugar or artificial sweeteners can lead to gut dysbiosis, an imbalance in the gut microbiome. Sugar can feed yeasts in the gut like candida albicans. This yeast is normally present in the gut but when left unchecked it can multiply.

An overgrowth of yeast can cause an imbalance in the gut and lead to problems like thrush, digestive issues, fatigue, and skin problems.

4. Get Enough Sleep

Your body has its own 24-hour clock known as a circadian rhythm that affects your brain, body, and hormones. It’s been found that your gut also follows a similar circadian-like rhythm. Disrupting your body clock through shift work or eating late at night may have harmful effects on your gut bacteria.

The modern way of living and being constantly connected can make it difficult to get your seven hours a night, but it’s vital for maintaining high energy levels and alertness.

5. Exercise Regularly

Working out regularly not only contributes to good heart health and mental clarity, but research suggests it may benefit the gut too.

One study found that athletes had a bigger variety of gut flora than non athletes. Check out a fitness gym, get a personal trainer or join a martial arts club,as this last one not only helps you improve your physical health but your mental health along with confidence building and long lasting life skills.

6. Take a Good Probiotic & Prebiotic Supplement

We can get probiotics from our food. But sometimes either we forget to eat foods with probiotics in them, or we just aren’t getting enough. That’s why taking a probiotic supplement can be so beneficial to maintaining our gut health.

Taking a probiotic supplement is like having a safety net for your microbiome. Don’t forget our children sometimes need a good probiotic too.

Those feel-good chemicals in your brain called serotonin are made in the gut rather than the brain.

If your gut is happy, you’ll feel happy too!

Yes, you should always try to get the nutrients you need from your diet, but a supplement can provide you with the extra assurance that you are actually getting the nutrients you need every single day.

7. Avoid Antibiotics

Although it’s often necessary to take antibiotics for health reasons the overuse of antibiotics is a serious public health problem.According to the CDC, doctors in the United States prescribe 30% of antibiotics or 47 million prescriptions, unnecessarily. When antibiotics are over-prescribed, it can lead to antibiotic resistance in the population. There are more than 2.8 million antibiotic-resistant infections that occur in the United States every year.

Antibiotics are damaging to your gut microbiome. Research suggests that even after six months after antibiotic use, the gut is still lacking in several beneficial species. It’s important to discuss antibiotic use with your doctor and think about alternatives if possible.

Things like garlic and echinacea have natural antibacterial properties that benefit both your gut and overall health.

Read more about Nutrition here.

A healthy gut is crucial to your overall health, so be sure to eat a diet rich in whole grains, vegetables and fruit. Consuming plenty of probiotic and prebiotic foods helps to create a balanced microbiome with lots of beneficial bacteria.