Gut Health
Last year during another professor's course I did a presentation on gut health. Your gut is directly correlated to your brain through the brain-gut connection. The brain isn’t the only place in the body that’s full of neurotransmitters, the gut is lined with one million neurotransmitters. Our central nervous system (CNS) and our enteric nervous system (ENS) connect via a cable called the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve flows from the brain stem to the abdomen creating this brain-gut connection.
Our gut microbiomes contain trillions of bacteria both good and bad. A healthy microbiome contributes to our over well being. In order to keep our microbiomes in good standing we need a balance of good nutrition and healthy lifestyle habits. The top gut health disruptors are antibiotics, pesticides, processed foods, stress, anxiety, environmental toxins, a sedentary lifestyle, and poor sleeping habits. Many antibiotics can disrupt our microbiome if taken advantage of. Pesticides such as glyphosate, can kill beneficial gut bacteria, allowing bad bacteria to dominate the microbiome. Processed foods are full of sugar and unhealthy fats which can starve out good bacteria in the gut. Stress and anxiety play a major role in disrupting the brain-gut barrier by causing dysbiosis, a change in bacterial distribution in the gut. Household cleaners and heavy metals can negatively change the function of the microbiome. People who don’t have much physical activity in their lives are more susceptible to lower diversity in the gut microbiome. Poor sleep habits can lead to dysbiosis leading to a weakened immune system.
In order to have a healthy gut we need to detoxify the gut, take probiotics, nourish probiotics with prebiotics, eat nutritiously, and get daily movement. You can detoxify the gut by removing as many toxic chemicals as possible. Eating foods such as apples, guavas, plums, and oranges are high in pectin which helps rid the gut of harmful toxins. Pectin promotes detoxification, lowers cholesterol, and increases satiety. Probiotics and prebiotics are good bacteria vital for gut health. Foods high in probiotics are yogurt, kimchi, and kombucha. Food high in prebiotics are oats, bananas, berries, and asparagus. Maintaining a healthy diet and getting in daily exercise will keep your gut in a healthy balance and increase probiotic populations.
I found that after I started to improve my nutrition and daily movement I had more energy and attention, and my bowel movements were a lot more regular. Especially as a woman we need at least 35g of fiber a day and that really helped regulate my stool. Incorporating more whole foods and being mindful of the chemicals I put inside and outside my body has shifted my overall well-being for the better.
