You may have come across a lot of advice on gut health from the internet, given that our body is home to 40 trillion micro-organisms living in our colon.
Human biology science has found that these invisible guests living inside our body have a vital role to play in our overall health & keep chronic diseases at bay. Our body outsources all the biological functions to gut microbiome & how you feed them has a profound impact on our gut health. So, an important question arises, how can we maintain & improve our gut health naturally? Let us discuss this in detail today!
While browsing on search engines you will find ample advice on healthy foods that can help you improve your gut health. However as you deep dive into information on the internet, you get confused since you will figure out conflicting views. The most common thing which you may come across will be “ Perfect gut diet” -MYTH.
The fact that Ketosis or Paleo or high protein or any other fad diet is better than others is totally myth. Further, certain foods are healthy for your gut health is again a baseless & flawed assumption. There is nothing as a standard healthy diet! Everyone & their gut microbiome needs a unique & distinctive set of diet hacks. The only standard advice which applies to everyone when it comes to gut health is to have a variety of plant based foods. However, which foods to include varies from person to person. The focus is to maintain diversity in our gut ecosystem. You may think Spinach is good for you since it is a healthy food however you may find that Spinach may create inflammation in your body while it may do wonders for your colleague or friend. This is because you may not have oxalobacter in your gut bacteria which is generally used to digest spinach.
Assume your microbes are your kids who may like different snacks to feed themselves. When your diet is diverse, it feeds a variety of microorganisms. Next few paragraphs discuss what you should not do that negatively impacts your gut microbiome?
- Sugar: Sugar is bad for your gut microbiome since harmful bacterias such as Candida loves to feast on it. A high sugar diet is said to change your gut microbiome composition & function.
- Artificial Sweeteners: These are also not good since they promote metabolic abnormalities & gut dysbiosis. Artificial Sweeteners changes gut microbiome composition & function in such as way that it promotes glucose tolerance, a potential symptom of many diseases including diabetes.
- Preservatives: Processed foods are not good for health but it has far reaching negative impacts on our gut microbiome, altering its composition & function. Carboxymethylcellulose (CMPF) is one of the common preservative used in various processed foods which can lead to gut dysbiosis.
- Antibiotics: High consumption of antibiotics changes the gut microbiome composition since these antibiotics kill all the bacterias( including the bad ones- they do not differentiate between good & bad bacteria). Although sometimes antibiotics may be necessary, relying on them & replacing food with medicine is a recipe to make your gut your energy.
- Stress: Our gut & brain constantly communicate with one another through vagus nerve- neurotransmitter production & other microbial metabolites. Stress & gut microbiome are two way street- Stress impacts our gut & in turn this impact further leads to stress, anxiety or depression.
- Smoking: Smoking changes our gut microbiome composition. People who smoke ha gut microbiome similar to those who are obese &/or suffer from IBD.
Let us also shed light on how we can improve our gut health naturally
- Spend a lot of time outside of your home: Since globalisation & in want of work, a lot of us have moved from farms to big cities. As such we do not come in contact of nature as we used to be & therefore we come in contact with few microbes.
- Get plenty of sleep: Deficient sleep impacts our gut microbiome composition. The focus should be on both 7 to 8 hours of sleep as well as quality of sleep. If you wake up in between your sleep feeling unrested, it will have a profound impact on your overall wellness.
- Exercise daily: Workout daily for 45 minutes to an hour helps in improving the richness & diversity of gut microbiome & beneficial bacteria. Jogging, walking, resistant training & even yoga.
- Follow a specific schedule: Our gut microbiome also runs on a 24 hours circadian rhythm like we do. Following a schedule makes sure that our gut microbiome functions smoothly. Jet Lag, shift work & erratic sleep schedules are key reasons for attracting diseases.
- Eat local & organic green veggies: Local organic vegetables not only skip harmful microbes bu also have beneficial bacterias from dirt on them.
- Vaginal birth as opposed to C-section: During the birth, the child gets its first set of microbes. When a baby is born vaginally, it carries microorganisms from the mother’s vagina. While when a baby is born through C section, its microbes are inoculated with skin microbes which increases risk of attracting certain diseases later in life. Although sometimes C-section cannot be avoided, it is important to note that vaginal birth improves gut microbe richness & diversity( strive to choose vaginal birth over C-section wherever possible).
Learning about gut bacteria can help you control your gut microbiome & hack your overall health .Want to learn how we are helping people understand their gut microbiome composition & keep them away from chronic illness? Take our gut intelligence assessment here & fix up free discovery call to know more.
Sources
1: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1379072/
2: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4615743/
3: https://gut.bmj.com/content/gutjnl/66/8/1414.full.pdf
4:https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/10/9/e035677
5: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29276734/
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