Good health begins and ends in the gut.
Your amazing digestive system (gut) ensures that you absorb nutrients from the foods you eat, it stops you getting sick; in fact 70% of your immune system is found in your gut. It produces vitamins like D and b12 and plays a vital role in how your feel. Some people even call the gut the second brain, think about how you feel when stressed or upset – do you get butterflies or digestive upsets. The old saying about a gut feeling really rings true here.
I like to think of the gut as a massive city made up of over 100 trillion, that right, trillion microbiota cells – basically good and bad bacteria. To keep this city running efficiently this bacteria needs to work together with the good guys out numbering the baddies just like in the real world.
When the bad guys are in control, it creates dysbiosis causing all kinds of crazy symptoms that make you feel less than amazing.
The bacteria in your gut can be thrown out of whack in a number of ways including;
Stress, and really who isn’t stressed?
Poor diet, high in sugar and processed foods. BUT a really good diet doesn’t guarantee a great gut either if you forget to include probiotics and prebiotics (the food that feeds the good guys)
Frequent antibiotic or NSAID use
Food Allergies or sensitivities (this is a little like which came first the chicken or the egg with many intolerance symptoms disappearing once gut health is restored)
Parasites, this sounds pretty gross but is fairly common.
The full list of symptoms is really long so here are just a few of the really common ones I see:
Bloating/ burping and flatulence
Frequent, urgent and unformed bowel movements
Brain fog and lack of mental clarity.
Allergies/ skin issues
Lack of energy/ mojo (sorry to say this but sex drive goes out the window)
Anxiety/ depression
Treatment
If you have more than one of the symptoms listed it might be worth looking at your gut as the cause.
So what do you do if you think your gut bacteria is out of balance? Get a test, as simple as peeing in a jar or talking to a qualified practitioner or as complex as supplying a stool sample – all pretty easy really.
The treatment plan is really pretty simple too. It’s worth noting that simply taking a probiotic supplement is not necessarily the answer. Imagine that you are driving to the mall (your gut) in a beautiful silver Porsche (the probiotic) but when you get to the mall all the parking spots are taken by beat up old Hondas (the bad bacteria, no offence to Honda drivers), it doesn’t matter that you have the greatest car ever if there is nowhere to park, then there is simply nowhere to park. This is where a detox comes in, getting rid of the bad guys (weeding), then spending some time preparing your gut for the introduction of the good guys (seeding) and then making sure the good bacteria takes hold (feeding) so there is no room for the bad guys.
Probiotics in the form or kefir, kombucha, saurkraut, kim chi, miso, yoghurt, fermented mayo and ketchup and of course good old cultured butter make up a part of at least one meal a day in my house. If this all sounds foreign to you that’s okay, it was to me too in the beginning and now I’m hooked. I will be sharing some more fermented foods over the next few weeks, I think the easiest place to start is to actually buy some. Read the yoghurt label and check that it has live acidopholis and bifidus as a minimum, grab a bottle of kombucha (they are everywhere), I also highly recommend the krauts made by Kitsa’s kitchen – she does mail order, you can check them out here.
Love your guts and they’ll love you back.
