The Low Down On Gut Health

For many years,research has shown that gut health is critical to overall health, and that an unhealthy gut contributes to a wide range of diseases including diabetes, obesity, rheumatoid arthritis, autism spectrum disorder, depression and chronic fatigue syndrome.

The human gut contains 10 times more bacteria than all the human cells in the entire body, with over 400 known diverse bacterial species. In fact, you could say that we’re more bacterial than we are human. Woah!

Bacteria can be classed as either harmful or helpful. Beneficial bacteria come and go so we don’t have a permanent supply. So for a vibrant gut “economy,” we need to continually replenish them via diet.
Beneficial gut bacteria help manufacture vitamins (B12, K, B6, B5, B3, folate and biotin), enhance absorption of minerals, fight off pathogens, digest food, and metabolise drugs. They even influence total body metabolism!

Unfortunately, several features of the modern lifestyle directly contribute to unhealthy gut flora:

• Antibiotics and other medications like birth control and NSAIDs
• Diets high in refined carbohydrates, sugar and processed foods
• Diets low in fermentable fibers
• Dietary toxins like wheat and industrial seed oils that cause leaky gut
• Chronic stress
• Chronic infectionsWhen the gut wall is irritated or inflamed, the tight junctions between its cells loosen up and we get increased permeability (or leaky gut syndrome). Inflammation, stress, pharmaceuticals, bacterial balance, malnutrition, compounds in food (gluten, casein, lectins, fructose, etc), and food additives can all influence the junctions in our gut and weaken their bonds.Leaky gut and bad gut flora are common because of the modern lifestyle. If you have a leaky gut, you probably have bad gut flora, and vice versa. And when your gut flora and gut barrier are impaired, you will be inflamed. Period.

  A few steps to help restore your gut flora:

• Remove all food toxins from your diet
• Eat plenty of fermentable fibers (starches like sweet potato, yam, yucca, etc.)
• Eat fermented foods like kefir, yogurt, sauerkraut, kim chi, etc., and/or take a high-quality,multi-species probiotic
• Treat any intestinal pathogens (such as parasites) that may be present
• Take steps to manage your stress