MY TOP TEN TIPS FOR GOOD GUT HEALTH
1. Mindful Eating
Avoid eating when standing, or when doing work / on the phone or computer. This means you’re eating in your fight or flight mode, which takes the blood flow away from the digestive tract, causing malabsorption of foods, and bloating.
Please try to sit down for every meal, and actually think about what is on your plate, and how it is going to benefit your health; rather than simply thinking about food to fill the hunger in your belly.
This includes CHEWING YOUR FOOD.
Try and chew 20 times with each mouthful before swallowing.
This will enhance food breakdown, increase the absorption of nutrients, and reduce bloating.
When you're eating on the run / in the fight or flight phase, your production of digestive enzymes reduces, and you're less inclined to breakdown your food; meaning it will go undigested to the large intestine, where bad bacteria eat at it; they produce gas = you get bloated and experience discomfort!
What a simple strategy EVERYONE can implement.
2. De-Stress
Heightened stress (or simply being too busy) can severely impact gut health; and this is something people often ignore.
The body cannot tell the difference between being stressed or in danger, and simply just being too busy. Your body still needs to secrete your stress hormones (cortisol and adrenaline) to make you productive, and make use of your time. This is something many people do not recognize as stress.
Stress takes the blood flow away from the digestive tract, alters stool and food transit time (ie: constipation or urgency and diarrhoea); and it also inhibits vagus nerve stimulation.
The Vagus Nerve is one of the Cranial Nerves. It's the Gut-Brain Axis.
Basically, it's like a little chemical messenger highway that links the gut and the brain together.
The Vagus nerve helps control peristalsis (the movement of food from one end to the other), it tells the body to release digestive and pancreatic enzymes to start breaking down your food, and it also helps active the "Rest and Digest" phase of the nervous system; which is the opposite of the fight or flight mode.
3. It's not "You Are What You Eat", but, "You Are What You Absorb".
Digestion begins in your mouth.
No, scrap that!
Digestion begins in your mind and eyes!
Mentioned above, Mindful Eating is severely important.
Looking at your food, observing what is in it, and allowing those signals to be sent to the brain to release saliva in the mouth, is where your digestion starts.
Saliva contains enzymes such as Amylase, which actually helps break down carbohydrates!
If you're not effectively stimulating the Vagus Nerve (aka. Gut Brain Axis / signalling highway), then you will not be producing adequate amounts of digestive or pancreatic enzymes, and therefore won't be breaking down, and absorbing your food.
My simple tips to increase digestive enzyme secretion (and stimulate the vagus nerve) are:
Warm lemon water (or apple cider vinegar) before main meals (the juice of 1/2 a lemon is fine)
Deep belly breathing (diaphragmatic breathing) before eating.
You can do either of these, anywhere, at any time!
This helps calm the nervous system, stimulate the Vagus Nerve, and switch to rest and digest mode (aka. enhancing food absorption).
4. Test Don't Guess
Think you might have a bacterial overgrowth/imbalance, SIBO, food sensitivity or a parasite?
Then please TEST for it.
Far too many people self prescribe harsh antibacterials and anti-parasitics without actually looking at what's going on with the state of someones gut.
Or more-often, will remove a food thinking they're intolerant to it, without looking at the state of their gut first.
LEAKY GUT - is when the lining of your small intestine is impaired. Think of it as little holes in a cellular barrier. This will impair nutrient absorption, inflammation, and cause food intolerances, because several different food particles, toxins, bacteria, you name it, will be getting through your gut lining, and into your blood stream - and the immune system attacks it, naturally
I like to do comprehensive microbiome testing with the majority of my clients, because it gives us a fantastic view of exactly what's going on internally.
It will test: parasites, bacteria, the ratios between different classes of bacteria that can make you gain weight, crave sugar and slow your metabolism, bacteria associated with auto-immune disease, gluten sensitivity, liver and gallbladder function, inflammation, LEAKY GUT, digestive enzymes; and it will even look at the amount of a particular enzyme that has the ability to re-circulate toxins and Oestrogen in the body...(Hello to all my acne, endo and hormonal imbalance sufferers!).
5. LOOK AT YOUR POO
Gross, I know.
But looking at our stools, really does give us a good indication of what may be going on in our gut.
Let me introduce you to an old friend of mine....the Bristol Stool Chart.
Have a look at the chart, save it if you must.
See which number on the chart you are.
A healthy stool should be around type 3, or even type 4.
Easy to pass, the occasional crack on the surface, sinks to the bottom, no food, no blood, and no mucous.
It should be a nice mid brown, not black or have black spots, and not a clay colour.
For MANY people, this is not the case.
If you're concerned about the quality of your stool, I urge you to do some stool testing with a reputable practitioner.
6. Variety is KEY
Long term gut health comes from variety in your diet.
Every single plant product we eat, had lots of different phytochemicals and constituents that actually allow our microbiome to flourish!
If we ate the same thing, day in, day out (which WAY too many people do!), then our bacteria will be continuously exposed to the SAME phytochemicals and constituents.
Think your your microbiome as a lush, diverse forest.
If you only ate the same 5-10 foods every week, then it's more likely that you will have the same 5 species of trees inhabiting the area. Whereas if you changed what you ate with the seasons, and had a diverse range of fibre rich, colourful plant products, then you will a diverse array of bacterial species.
I say to many of my clients, try and shop at a farmers market, where you can get fresh ingredients that has not been GENETICALLY MODIFIED to be available all year round.
Next time you go into a supermarket, take a look at the fresh produce; have you ever noticed that the same fruits and veggies are available all year round?
That is NOT the way mother nature intended it to be.
7. Avoid Excess Saturated Fats
Saturated fats from animal products and oils such as coconut oil, palm oil, canola oil, sunflower oil,and butter, are high in saturated fats.
Sure, we need a small amount of these, but studies have shown high amounts of Saturated fats in the diet, has been linked to an increased release of something called lipopolysaccharides (LPS).
LPS are the dead debris of gram negative bacterial cell walls, and they are not good news.
They produce masses of amounts of toxins into the human body, and severely increase inflammatory cytokine release (inflammatory chemicals in the body). These LPS produced int he gut and their associated toxins have been shown to be major predisposing factors for inflammation associated diseases such as atherosclerosis, sepsis, obesity, type 2 diabetes and Alzheimer's.
Studies have even showed Coconut oil (which is high in saturated fat) to increase LPS release, and associated toxins.
Now with everyone being on a crazy coconut oil obsessed rage, this is a concern for me as a practitioner, and someone who focuses heavily on gut health and long term health.
I always tell my clients, that fat is ESSENTIAL, and a low-fat diet is no longer considered healthy.
HOWEVER, you need to be sure which fats are good, and which are bad.
I prefer my clients to prioritize their essential fatty acids, primarily their Omega 3's.
Examples inclide
Fatty fish such as Herring, Halibut, Mackerel, Anchovies, Sardines and Salmon.
Nuts/Seeds such as hemp seeds, chia seeds, flax seeds, walnuts
Vegetables such as Avocado
These oils have been shown to reduce LPS and toxin release, protect the cells from damage, and reduce inflammation in the body.
8. Avoid pharmaceutical medication if you can...incl. the Pill, Nexium and NSAIDs
Now, this is not necessarily anything new, but more-so here to show you some of the side effects pharmaceutical medication have have.
THE PILL:
is associated with dysbiosis, as it reduces the variety and strength of your beneficial strains of bacteria, allowing your pathogenic (bad bacteria) to thrive.
it's associated with an increase risk of depression and anxiety after only taking if for two months! This acts by reducing serotonin production (which 90% of is made in the enterochromaffin cells in the small intestine).
long term OCP use has been linked to inflammatory bowel disease (Ulcerative Colitis and Crohn's disease).
NEXIUM AND OTHER ANT-ACIDS:
increased rates of SIBO and increases the gut lining destruction caused by NSAIDs
They act by reducing stomach acid secretions (this means you're not effectively breaking down your food!
NSAIDS:
Also known as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug's
Increased inflammation in the whole gastrointestinal tract
Increased permeability of tight gap junctions - Aka: LEAKY GUT
Can cause ulceration and bleeding of the gut.
9. Eat Organic
A lot of our food is now genetically modified to be available all year round, and genetically modified to survive pesticides and chemicals sprayed on them to kill bugs and weeds.
These are all extremely harsh chemicals, the majority of which are known carcinogens.
Why on earth would you eat that?!
Eating organic not only supports farmers, but also supports you, and your gut health.
Avoiding toxin exposure from a diet (or lifestyle) will reduce the toxic burden on your gut, and your body all over.
Toxins will increase intestinal permeability (leaky gut), and are a lot for your body (and liver) to process.
Pesticides are associated with an increased risk of chronic diseases such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, birth defects, reproductive disorders, cancers, diabetes and auto-immune disease.
Try and east seasonally, and buy organic wherever possible.
I like to try and follow the below:
DIRTY DOZEN (please buy these organic)
Strawberries
Spinach
Kale
Nectarines
Apples
Grapes
Peaches
Cherries
Pears
Tomatoes
Celery
Potatoes
CLEAN FIFTEEN (ok to not get organic if it's not available or accessible - but please WASH AND SOAK these in Lemon or Eucalyptus essential oil):
Avocados
Sweet corn
Pineapples
Frozen sweet peas
Onions
Papayas
Eggplants
Asparagus
Kiwis
Cabbages
Cauliflower
Cantaloupes
Broccoli
Mushrooms
Honeydew melons
10. PROTECT YOURSELF
On far too many stool tests, I always see bacterial overgrowth's and parasites.
Many strains such as Streptococcus, Staph, Bacillus, Pseudomonoas, Morganella etc, come from contaminated food, via faecal oral transmission.
Now if that doesn't gross you out, I don't know what will.
Obviously we have little to no control over handling or hygiene practices on other people's behalves, but we CAN help ourselves.
Here are some simple tips to prevent bacterial overgrowths:
Wash your veggies (and your cooking utensils / cooking space / hands before preparing food)
Support the integrity of your gut lining using things like bone broth and collagen
Support the integrity of your mucousal barrier that lines your gastrointestinal tract (Secretory IgA) by having adequate amounts of vitamin C, vitamin A and ZINC.
De-Stress - this significantly impairs the quality and thickness of our mucosal barrier.
Read, and re-read points 1-9 of this, and screen shot your little heart out! All of these above rules can be easily implemented into anyone's lifestyle!!