Do You Have a Deficiency?

Hello Everyone! If you are tired all the time, with no energy and low moods, and feel that you sleep well, consider getting tested for anemia.

Chronic inflammation and conditions like IBD, Crohn’s, colitis, celiac disease, and Hiatal Hernia often cause anemia due to nutrient malabsorption and blood loss. Still, if you don’t have a known condition and are feeling exhausted, it may come down to your eating and what you are not eating.

This post is worth a read because many so-called healthy and trendy diets could lack essential nutrients that can cause irreversible damage to health, and yes, your gut health can help you!

Why Are You So Fatigued and Short of Breath?

What Is the Best Diet to Avoid Anemia?

Are You Short of Breath When Resting?

Do You Need Iron?

Why Do You Feel Depressed and Sick?

What Is B-12?

B-12 Deficiency Symptoms

Symptoms of Anemia:

Can Vegans Get Anemia?

Why Are You So Fatigued and Short of Breath?

Anemia causes fatigue and shortness of breath, as does chronic inflammation. I advise that you have blood tests with your healthcare professional.

Anemia is a severe global public health problem, affecting over two billion individuals. It is caused by loss of blood, lack of red cell production, and high rates of red blood cell destruction.

It is problematic by itself, but it can also impact other global public health concerns like obesity, for instance, due to the symptom of having no energy to exercise.

Sedentary lifestyles, diabetes, and chronic inflammation are linked to anemia.

Gut dysbiosis causes chronic inflammation.

Chronic inflammation alters nutrient availability, and this includes iron.

Sometimes, the cause of anemia is unknown, but it is usually caused by a condition, factor, trigger, and mostly, according to the World Health Organization, iron deficiency.

Anemia can occur when we don’t eat enough foods containing essential nutrients like B-12 and B-9 that promote iron-absorbing microbiota.

A significant concern is not the source of the iron but the type of iron and absorption. The kind of iron ingested is essential from many foods that provide iron, but there is also a specific microbiota that improves dietary iron absorption.

This article focuses on protecting yourself from anemia through gut health, reducing inflammation, and increasing nutrition absorption.

What Is the Best Diet to Avoid Anemia?

Gut health is essential to protect yourself from anemia, and many factors cause an imbalance; this includes your diet, how you live your life, how you move, breathe, think, sleep, de-stress, and so on.

Well-being affects gut health, which affects iron absorption.

Anemia is showing particular prevalence lately with this growing trend of veganism. Also, with other unhealthy diets, such as following a calorie-controlled diet.

Vegetarians also risk anemia due to limited essential daily nutritional requirements.

Following an anemia diet devised by a qualified gut health nutritionist is crucial since you have the right amount, depending on your body’s needs and functions.

Addressing any chronic inflammation condition and autoimmune disease causing your anemia and healing it through Eat Burn Sleep will aid in iron, B-12, B9, and other essential minerals and vitamin absorption.

For times when your body may need more red blood cells, with physical changes like trauma or pregnancy, for instance.

You may like to read: How Do You Get Nutrients With Celiac Disease?

Women need more iron than men due to menstruation, but an iron deficiency can also come from regular blood donation.

The primary way to get iron is from food, and many excellent sources exist. Without it, we don’t produce heme, the molecules in blood that host iron.

Heme and non-heme iron absorption in the digestive system involves various processes and proteins.

Many factors, including foods and additives that are eaten, inhibit iron (and other essential nutrients needed to avoid anemia) absorption. As I mentioned above, the gut microbiota is a significant factor. Stimulating the growth and colonization of beneficial gut bacteria will increase iron absorption.

Reducing chronic inflammation through balancing gut microbiota will increase nutrient bioavailability. Improved immune function also occurs!

What is also imperative to iron absorption is lifestyle!

Dietary changes are never enough to achieve optimum health.

Are You Short of Breath When Resting?

Shortness of breath, even when resting, is a sign of iron-deficient anemia. Again, I advise visiting your doctor for a health assessment.

Iron-deficient anemia is when there is a reduced hemoglobin level in your blood. Hemoglobin is the protein in red blood cells that carry oxygen around the circulatory system.

When this dips below a healthy level, oxygen is not circulated to bodily tissues, and body homeostasis is not maintained, causing anemia. Iron isn’t absorbed optimally in your gut, either.

This is when you can experience those feelings of exhaustion, low moods, shortness of breath, and irritability attached to anemia. The tiredness you get with anemia differs from the tiredness from lack of sleep! You can feel so drained!

You may like to read How to Ease Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/ME, How to Recover From Virus Infections.

Do You Need Iron?

Iron is imperative to health, as it participates in various metabolic processes.

Iron is needed for electron transfer, DNA, cell cycle control, hormone synthesis, nitrogen fixation, and antioxidant properties. It is essential to a healthy immune system, and you are more likely to pick up infections when you are depleted of iron.

Still, its volume in the body has to be regulated because too much can lead to tissue damage and neurodegenerative diseases.

Iron deficiency and excess iron levels are essential to gut health. Fluctuating levels can impact gut microbiota. Gut microbiota dysbiosis is, of course, the link to chronic inflammation, compromised immunity, and the development of chronic diseases that are linked to 78% of deaths worldwide.

You don’t need to be anemic to be iron-deficient!

Why Do You Feel Depressed and Sick?

Feeling low, depressed, and nauseous are signs of anemia and chronic inflammation, and it would be a good idea to request a blood test from your doctor.

Pernicious anemia, a type of Megaloblastic anemia, can occur without B-12 and B9 (folate).

Not enough nutrients cause pernicious anemia in the diet, and it is also an autoimmune condition that can be inherited. It is when antibodies to intrinsic factor are produced, so the body cannot absorb B-12 (because it needs intrinsic factor to do so). This means that it cannot make enough red blood cells.

Damage to the terminal ileum, which can happen when chronic inflammation is present, can cause impaired B-12 absorption because that is the part of the intestines where B-12 is absorbed.

Gastric bypass surgery is a cause, too, because the area (parietal stomach cells) where intrinsic factor is produced is now bypassed!

Autoimmune conditions also cause an inability to make intrinsic factor due to the body attacking its own tissues and gastrointestinal disorders.

Nutrients are not absorbed, and malnutrition, particularly anemia, can kick in.

Gut health and mental health are connected through the brain-gut axis. Eat Burn Sleep is a successful diet and lifestyle for improving depression and anxiety.

You may be interested to read Depression Diet & Lifestyle Intervention, Signs of Inflammation That May Surprise You, Come Off Antidepressants, Feeling Depressed, Not Jolly? and Do You Often Feel Like Crying?

What Is B-12?

B-12 (cobalamin) is a water-soluble vitamin from red meat, eggs, and dairy.

Intrinsic factor is produced in your parietal stomach cells that help your intestines absorb vitamin B12. It aids in synthesizing DNA, fatty acids, and myelin through its use as a cofactor for the enzymes involved in the process.

Myelin is an insulating sheath that forms around nerves, such as the spinal and brain cord. If it is not functioning, which can happen with a B-12 deficiency, then important electrical impulses slow down.

B-12 Deficiency Symptoms

Not only does B-12 deficiency cause symptoms like fatigue, lack of energy, irritability, brain fog, headaches, weight loss, chronic infections, a tender tongue, and shortness of breath, but it also causes neurological problems.

B-12 deficient-neurological problems can be irreversible, and they include:

• Memory loss
• Pins and needles
• Vision issues
• Damage to the nervous system, which affects walking
• Loss of coordination

B-12 deficiency can affect your unborn child, increase heart conditions, put you at risk of jaundice, and compromise surgery recovery.

A doctor recently told me about a vegan patient who was depleted in B-12 and was paralyzed after an injury involving myelin from the waist down. That’s how vital B-12 is!

B-12 deficiency is tricky to pick up since symptoms may be subtle in the early days, and you may have grown accustomed to living with them.

Symptoms of Anemia:

• Lack of energy
• Fatigue – it feels so different than ‘lack of sleep’ tiredness
• Shortness of breath – even when you are resting
• Cold hands and feet
• Chest pain
• Depression
• Loss of appetite
• A smooth tongue
• Nausea
• Restless legs
• Cravings for non-food items

Can Vegans Get Anemia?

If you are a vegan, you will not have essential B12, heme iron, and other minerals needed for optimum health. You won’t be having essential complete amino acids, etc.

B12 (cobalamin), B9 (folate), and iron are essential for optimum health and protection from anemia. Without them, megaloblastic anemia can settle in, which symptoms include: shortness of breath, palpitations, shortness of breath, weakness, heart murmurs, and some irreversible neurological issues. 

Although folate is abundant in many foods a vegan can eat, being vegan is unsuitable for your body. I know this is a hot topic, but if you have to supplement for something that your body needs and nutrients are not absorbed efficiently because of what you eat, it isn’t an optimum healthy diet.

If you have been thinking about changing from being a vegan to introducing animal products into your diet again, which I strongly advise, then in the Premium Membership, there is specialized advice guiding you gently through the process, emotionally and practically—Reintroducing Animal Products.

It is imperative to get all of the nutrients that you need from food.

(If you have an IBD condition like Crohn’s or Colitis, you will possibly be having iron supplements or transfusions to treat anemia due to the nature of your condition).

The bioavailability of food is far superior to any supplement, and many nutrients do not work without their synergistic allies!

There are consequences to not taking care of your health. 

Gut health will soon be compromised by not getting all the essential macro and micronutrients your body needs and eating ultra-processed foods. You may be living with stress or not getting enough sleep. You could be overloading your liver and not exercising properly for optimum health.

Many people feel that they live a healthy life. Then they realize that they eat a limited diet and have learned to live with symptoms like feeling tired and cold all the time. Or are burning the candle at both ends and have a sedentary job, and so on.

There are many external factors that you can blame for your lack of energy, like having young children or a busy job and not having enough sleep, but it is always a good idea to keep an eye on your health.

Your microbiota needs your attention, not just for iron absorption.

Sustained inflammation running in your body may not present itself at the moment. How to Silence Hidden Inflammation.

It may not mean anything to you now if you feel semi-okay and are not overweight, and manage your weight by counting calories. your body needs to absorb essential nutrients to age beautifully and live fully. Gut microbiota needs to be balanced to keep chronic inflammation at bay.

Without counting calories and having fantastic food, effective workouts, sweet treats, neuroplasticity, better mental well-being and sleep, energy, joie de vivre…

Eat Burn Sleep is not just a lifestyle. It is a life changer!

There’s no finer way to start your journey to optimum health. You won’t be disappointed if you join our fantastic community.

I wish everyone a wonderful day!