The importance of a balanced healthy gut
Gut health is central to natural medicine, all disease begins in the gut!!
All traditional healing systems had a deep understanding of the important and central role of the gut for health and wellbeing. Modern science is only just catching up to this realisation and understanding!!
The “gut” brings nutrients into the body and eliminates waste, but it is far more than just a digestive system. A huge portion of our immune system is in our gut. The gut microbiome plays a key role in communicating with the nervous system (“gut-brain axis”), which means proper digestion also plays a massive role in our daily mood balance. A healthy microbiome supports a strong immune system, heart health, brain health, improved mood, healthy sleep, systemic circulation, liver function, and optimal digestive health.
Signs & Symptoms of an unhappy gut
Abdominal distention, bloating and wind
Reflux and indigestion
Constipation and/or diarrhoea
Mental health - anxiety, depression
Headaches
Poor sleep
Sugar cravings - The microbes in your gut are really good at trying to manipulate you into eating the types of food that feed them and help them grow
Brain fog / poor concentration
Weight gain / difficulty loosing weight
Poor immune system, catching every cough and cold
Autoimmunity
Chronic illness
Fatigue
Skin issues - eczema, acne
Hormonal imbalance
Can you relate to any of these signs and symptoms? It is essential to address gut imbalances, as all dis-ease begins in the gut and once it is out of balance it is only going to further impact other major systems of your body such as immune, nervous and hormonal systems....
Some of the causes of gut imbalance include;
Poor diet choices, has to be number 1 - good bacteria thrive on things like fiber and plant foods, bad bacteria and yeast love processed foods and sugar. And when your diet is full of processed foods and sugar, as many Western diets are, the well-fed bad bacteria start to overtake the good.
Food intolerances and sensitivities, these will cause inflammation within the gut and a multitude of gut and systemic symptoms. Can lead to leaky gut and inflammation issues within your whole body.
Medications, including the over-use of antibiotics, so if you are sick all the time because your immune system is suppressed due to gut issues, taking antibiotics will further impact your gut health and immunity making yoiu more prone to needing antibiotics
Chronic stress - this is a big one! If you are in fight or flight, sympathetic nervous system overdrive, your gut function shuts down, compromising your digestion and impacting your gut microbiome - in turn impacting your mental health.
Luckily, there are lots of things you can do to help improve your gut health and the health benefits for your entire being are phenomenal....
Clean up your diet - the foods you eat have a direct impact on your gut microbiome. Eliminate all process, packaged, sugars, refined carbs and too many trans fats and animal proteins. Fibre and complex carbs - wholefoods will feed the good bacteria, while sugars and refined carbs will feed the bad, causing imbalance in your gut flora. Include plenty of fresh veggies, lean proteins and healthy fats.
Pre and Pro biotic foods to feed the good bacteria, fermented foods can restore a healthy gut microbiome, especially if you eat the regularly and consistently. These include kombucha, kimchi, sauerkraut, miso and natural yoghurt.
Identify and eliminate food triggers that may be causing inflammation within your gut, this is key to a healthy gut. If you require support with this, we offer food intolerance testing in the clinic or can work with an elimination diet to pinpoint key trigger foods.
De-stress, look at ways to reduce your stress levels. Bring in herbal teas to support your nervous system, helping it restore to healthy functioning.
In our clinic we always begin with the elimination of the key foods that cause gut inflammation:
Gluten
Dairy
Sugar
Processed and packaged foods
Caffeine
Alcohol
Soy (except for fermented soy such as miso)
This gives your gut the opportunity to rest and restore. We can work with the weed - feed - seed gut healing protocol to bring your gut back into healthy balance. We weed out the bad bacteria's through diet and herbal support, work on healing your gut lining and feeding the good bacterias and then support with probiotics to restore your gut microbiome.
A gut healing protocol is an 8 week process and a great way to support your gut health annually and the key to overall health and wellbeing....
Sometimes we require a deeper level of support to achieve our wellness goals.
If you want to heal your gut and bring your gut health back to optimum function, reach out for an appointment.