You probably don’t spend a lot of time thinking about what is going on inside of your gut unless you have digestive problems.
However, in the last two decades, science has made some real progress in understanding just how important gut health is to our overall health.
Numerous studies confirm that an unhealthy gut negatively influences our immune system, mood, and mental health. Gut inflammation also increases our risk of developing autoimmune disease, endocrine disorders, skin conditions, and yes, even cancer.
This means recognizing symptoms and learning how to improve gut health naturally is of the utmost importance.
In our modern world, it is impossible to avoid daily exposure to toxic substances.
You can be a bit skeptical and disconnected with all the crunchy moms preaching about EMR and the importance of nature. But there is too much evidence to dispute the fact that our modern daily lives are altering the delicate balance of our gut microbiome.
Pollutants are in the food we eat, the air we breath, and even raining down on us from the sky.
You probably have at least one friend that can’t eat gluten and you feel sorry for her as you shove a delectable slice of pizza down your throat.
I once had this same sentiment for my very own sister.
That was until I started to look 6 months pregnant before I went to bed every night.
There isn’t a single human being that lives “city life” who should ignore the importance of optimizing their gut microbiome, PERIOD.
In this post we will examine the importance of gut health, how to tell if you are colonized by bad bacteria, how to improve your microbiome, and explore what a healthy gut diet looks like.
We will also debunk some common misconceptions about probiotics.
Let’s get started.
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The Importance of Gut Health
A healthy gut is key to our vitality. This may seem obvious because our gut is the gatekeeper for the food and water that fuels our organic existence.
But a healthy gut is not about digestion alone.
Where we once thought disease was related to genetic expression, we recognize that it has everything to do with the tiny bugs that live inside of us.
Gastrointestinal health is the root cause for many health conditions, especially regarding the brain and mental health.
We now know that the majority of serotonin production (an important neurotransmitter that regulates our mood, sleep cycles, libido, appetite, and many other things) occurs in the gut with the help of our diverse intestinal microbiome.
The human gut is home to over 10,000 different species of bacteria. In fact scientists are still in the process of understanding the microorganisms that make up a healthy gut.
Every few years they add thousands more to the ledger and that list isn’t limited to bacteria. We are also home to viruses and fungi although there is currently less understanding on how those species influence us.
The hundred trillion bacteria in the body of an adult human outnumber our own cells 10:1.
They contain about 4 million distinct functioning bacterial genes, with more than 95% of them located in the large intestine. I highlighted the word functioning so you didn’t miss it. Yes, the genes from microorganisms are influencing the day to day biologic nuances that are happening inside of us.
According to the Human Genome Project, there are more bacterial genes modulating our daily bodily functions than human ones!
We are very much in the infancy stage of our understanding of the human microbiome as it relates to health. One thing we all agree on is the microorganisms living inside our gut have the ability to “well oil” the machine. Have an overgrowth in the wrong species, and we become very, very sick.
The influence of our microbiome can change our immune response, turning a normal day into a complete disaster when we encounter commonplace foods like peanuts.
They have the capacity to synthesize chemicals which affect our sleep cycles and stress response.
They provide us with an extra intestinal barrier against pathogenic bacteria and assist in digestion by converting foods that would not otherwise be absorbed into bioavailable energy sources.
Our health has everything to do with our microbiome.
This is great news for us because we now have hope!
We no longer have to fear things outside of our control such as our familial genes. We can influence our health by protecting our gut with a diverse microbiome.
Our next quest then is to understand what are the building blocks of an optimal microbiome. But before we can do that, we need to know the warning signs that we are colonized by some not-so-friendly microorganisms.
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