How Does Gut Health Affect Us
Hi Everyone! I talk about gut health all the time, as you know, and how it can change and lead to chronic inflammation and immune dysregulation.
There is still a lot of wonder about gut health, though. Why do we need good gut health? What exactly is gut health? Is gut health just another trend until the next health trend? Does gut health matter?
Gut health really matters! It is vital to good health. It isn’t a passing health trend.
It’s important that we all know how to make and keep our guts healthy. It is linked to chronic disease and to the leading cause of death.
It isn’t just food that we need to look at, although that’s a good place to start.
I hope that you will be as fascinated about these tummy bugs as I am. It’s amazing that they are imperative to good health. Read on and share!
What Is Gut Bacteria?
How Do You Get Good Gut Health?
Why Is Gut Health Trending?
How Do You Know If Your Gut Health Is Balanced?
What Is the Fastest Way to Improve Gut Health?
How Can You Improve Gut Bacteria?
How Do You Fix Gut Health ASAP?
Why Does Gut Bacteria Change?
How Can I Drastically Change My Health?
What Does Gut Bacteria Do?
The Causes of Bad Gut Health
What Are the Signs of an Unhealthy Gut?
What Meals Are Good for the Gut?
Why Do I Need Good Gut Health?
What Is Gut Bacteria?
Your gut health is the entire digestive system, running from your esophagus to your bowel, and it is full of microbes!
Your gastrointestinal tract harbors a complex colony of trillions of different microbes and thousands of species of gut bacteria, fungi, viruses, and parasites.
Suppose you can imagine this vast, industrial network of cell signaling and pathways with proteins, metabolites, peptides, etc., in the layers of the GI tract. In that case, you get a rough idea of the gut microbiome.
Most microbiota are symbiotic (which means that microbiota and the body benefit), and some are pathogenic (disease-promoting).
These microorganisms, which consist of viruses, fungi, protozoa, and microbiota, weighing in at around 4-5 lbs, all co-exist quite happily in a healthy person.
Our diverse gut microbiomes are paramount to good health.
How Do You Get Good Gut Health?
Your gut health started before you were born. That was when the first colonization occurred.
We got some from our mothers, who got their first exposure from their mother, who got hers from her mother, and so on.
Since the second we were born, we inherited and acquired trillions of bugs all over and inside us called microorganisms.
Our gut microbiome is unique to us, and it is there to protect us.
Some of our microorganisms are ancient because they have been passed down from mother to mother!
What they were exposed to was passed down, and so on.
This links to an intriguing report about the existence of ancient microbes in our microbiome by Dr. Rook, University College, London.
These trillions of microorganisms and their genes support critical functions, which has allowed us to evolve. In return, they get what they need to survive from us!
These ancient microbes prevented the body from attacking its tissues and resembled that of the natural environment.
Why Is Gut Health Trending?
Gut health is trending because it has been realized that good gut health is imperative to good health. Gut health is real and not a fad.
Please be warned about unqualified people on social media giving out gut health advice, gut health hacks, gut health weight loss tips, and so on. You could damage your gut health and open up your body to the risk of disease. I always advise that you take gut health nutrition and gut health diet advice from a qualified gut health expert/nutritionist/doctor who has studied gut health.
So, gut health is not a passing health trend. I have spent years studying gut health and chronic inflammation, and it is crucial to good health.
How Do You Know If Your Gut Health Is Balanced?
A balanced microbiota stimulates the immune system and synthesizes amino acids and vitamins. It also assists in breaking down toxic compounds, providing protection from organisms that enter the body through contaminated food and drink.
You would know about it if your gut health is unbalanced. Once you know how to look after your gut health, when it becomes unbalanced, you will feel it.
What Is the Fastest Way to Improve Gut Health?
In the past, we lived under timber and close to dung and thatch. We had pantries, not refrigeration. Bacteria were more abundant, and we were exposed to them more than they are today.
Nowadays, our homes are made with manufactured products, people clean too much, and there are chemicals everywhere!
We miss that connection to the past and do not have the microbiota to deal with these extremely clean environments.
Unless we live on a farm in a natural environment or with pets! (If you think of the powers of earthing and maximizing our exposure to nature and our connection to early antioxidants).
Having good hygiene is important to avoid infections, but too much is not good for your health.
The Lifestyle Guide has more gut health information. It will help you look after your gut health, keep sickness and disease at bay, and have you feeling fantastic – every day! Start with the potent, popular 6-week Reset.
How Can You Improve Gut Bacteria?
You can improve your gut bacteria by following an anti-inflammatory lifestyle that has a focus on gut health.
Exposure is key to protection!
If we are never exposed to something, we won’t have the bugs to deal with it when we do. This is why if you have never come across a certain germ and then you are suddenly exposed to it, your body reacts.
It’s all about diversity, remember. Your good bacteria will thrive if you do something that encourages it.
So, the first exposure is entirely down to our mother’s/DNA species of microbiota but also depends on how we are delivered into the world. Vaginally delivered (and position), we have microbiota resembling our mother’s vagina microbiota. C-sections would harbor microbes from a mother’s skin.
The microbiota we were born with is not very diverse but soon alters as we adapt to our surroundings so that we can digest the food we are given and deal with germs and what is around us. This cultivates a diverse, anti-inflammatory microbiome.
A baby in America is exposed to different bugs than a baby in Europe, for instance.
As we go through life, as we have changing environments, lifestyle habits, and so on, gut health corresponds with how you live.
So, if we feed the good bacteria with good nutrients, they thrive. If we feed it with damaging foods, then the damaging bacteria grows. They, in fact, like anything living, will want to survive and send signals to your brain for more damaging foods! They are that powerful!
How Do You Fix Gut Health ASAP?
We have bacteria all over us as the first line of defense – on our skin, in our airways, and in our guts. If we don’t give the bad bacteria any reason to grow, we stay healthy.
Gut bacteria become harmful when a healthy diversity is not encouraged. This affects the immune system, and ruins the line of defense, and that is when we are susceptible to disease. See the list of reasons below why gut bacteria change.
You can fix gut health ASAP by joining our gut health community!
Why Does Gut Bacteria Change?
Gut bacteria change with everything we do and are exposed to.
Exposure in infancy protects a child from developing weakened immune systems later in life that are sensitive to pollen, benign germs, and dust.
Likewise, exposure to chemicals in infancy can affect these gut microbiota. Did you read: Why Aspartame is Linked to Cancer? Exposure to aspartame is linked before you are born if your mother drank aspartame-laden drinks without knowing about the dangers. It has only been exposed as a carcinogen recently, despite scientists crying out for it to be banned for decades!
There are more risks of being susceptible to chronic inflammatory conditions and autoimmune diseases later in life without the correct quantity and quality of germs in childhood.
It’s really important to be exposed and not shielded unless it is chemicals!
Have you read Low-calorie Foods for Weight Loss and listened to my chat with Dr. Dawn Sherling on Food Additives & Your Microbiome and about The Behavioral Immune System with Nick Potter?
I talk all the time about how medication can cause gut dysbiosis and keep you in a perpetual state of sickness, so to speak. I found this out when I was researching what was wrong with me and how I could fix myself with two autoimmune diseases. Read NSAIDs, Gut Health & Inflammation.
So, everything we are exposed to as we grow, along with our diets, habits, and environment, shapes our microbiota communities. This bug community can change the body into a healthy state or one at greater risk of disease.
Mental and physical health change bacteria. Stress and depression can change your gut bacteria. The wrong exercise can change it, too.
Being with people has an effect on gut bacteria.
Sleep affects gut bacteria! If you don’t get good quality regular sleep, your gut health will be affected. Have you read Weight Loss and The Link To Sleep?
And vice versa! It all works symbiotically together.
How Can I Drastically Change My Health?
You can drastically change your health by joining this anti-inflammatory lifestyle.
Your gut health will improve dramatically, and the benefits are astounding.
You see, some bacteria in your gut may grow depending on what you are exposed to and what you eat. Others may disappear or shrink, which influences the immune system in the gut and in our adaptive immune system.
There’s a whole array of activities involving antigens, innate cell types, neutrophils, T cells, and B cells, for instance, that go on in the gut that displays how the microbiota has a profound effect on both the innate and adaptive immune system. A study by Wu & Wu (2012) explains it in detail.
Microbiota can change or become fixed due to being too hygienic, even.
Having a low microbial load due to being too clean in modern life can have a powerful effect on our immune response because it will either not be tolerant or will create inflammation.
What Does Gut Bacteria Do?
Our composition of microbiota has a crucial influence on our health. As I mentioned, it aids nutrient metabolism, breaks down toxic compounds, and protects against contaminated food and drink. It also ensures that the gut barrier is strong.
Indeed, our microbiota is an intrinsic regulator of immune responses.
Gut microbiota plays a vital role in the development of immune homeostasis, including the development of gut-associated lymphoid tissues.
70-80% of immune cells (Gut-associated Lymphoid Tissue) reside in the gut. GALT is an essential component in protecting the body from pathogens. In fact, studies show that it is microbiota from before we are born that is involved in generating innate immunity during growth and development.
Gut microbiota and gut-associated lymphoid tissue are essential players in the pathogenesis of various diseases.
The Causes of Bad Gut Health
An unbalanced microbiota results in gut dysbiosis, leading to chronic disease through (but not limited to):
- *An unhealthy diet, including calorie-restrictive and extreme diets (not all popular diets are good for you!)
- *A compromised immune system (you can be born with or acquire a weakened immune system)
- *Overstimulated bowel functions (malnutrition through inflammatory bowel conditions like Crohn’s, colitis, and diverticulitis)
- *Older age (influenced by personal factors)
- *Lifestyle
- *Obesity
- *Medication (often to ‘treat’ disease causes more disease)
- *Antibiotics (wipe out a gut microbiota richness and diversity within four days)
- *Recurring bouts of acute inflammation (pneumonia, viruses: colds, flu, Covid)
- *Auto-inflammatory diseases
- *Stress
- *Illness (a vicious cycle)
- *Environment (toxins, cleaning products, plastics, solvents, pesticides, cigarette smoke, mercury, and so on)
- *Sleep deprivation
- *Certain exercises
- *Isolation (not socializing significantly alters gut microbiota).
What Are the Signs of an Unhealthy Gut?
Dysbiosis (when an altered interaction between immune cells and microbiota occurs) makes the body susceptible to disease. It increases intestinal permeability (leaky gut syndrome) and opens up the chronic inflammation pathway!
When you realize how gut microbiota can get unbalanced, and contributing factors like highly processed and calorie-controlled diets, along with other factors mentioned above, you can see the link with the rise in chronic inflammatory diseases like obesity, diabetes, depression, cancer, and autoimmune diseases.
There are currently, 10 percent of the population with autoimmune diseases, and 78% of deaths worldwide are linked to chronic inflammation.
It seems that everyone has conditions that are related to the gut microbiome!
What Meals Are Good for the Gut?
You can find 300+ gut-health recipes when you sign up for this gut-health diet and lifestyle. They are globally inspired, so you get to travel around the world while you are making yourself super healthy, too! Try these taster dishes: Moroccan Burgers, Sicilian Eggplants, Asian Chicken Soup With Konjac Noodles, Mediterranean Roast Chicken & Vegetables, and Coconut & Cacao Loaf.
Why Do I Need Good Gut Health?
Having good gut health not only protects you from disease but can help you age well and keep you looking and feeling young, as long as you incorporate other lifestyle factors. Good gut health assists in looking after your skin, hair, eyes, mood, and cognition, and it helps relationships! It’s true.
If you have good gut health, you are most likely to be a better friend, and seeing people that you love spending time with is good for gut health, too. As I mentioned above, staying social is important for your gut health and immune health!
The wonderful thing is, is that with the right manipulation, you can make your gut microbiome into a healthy, diverse community.
You just need the right tools!
