What is the gut
The gut (gastrointestinal tract) is a series of organs that start in your mouth and end in your colon.
You could see it as a pipe running through your human body.
This pipe is around 9 meters/ 30 feet long.
These organs are responsible for transporting the food we eat, absorbing all the nutrients we have, and expelling what we don’t need. This process is also known as the digestive process, which is separated into 6 stages.
- Ingestion
- Propulsion
- Mechanical Digestion
- Chemical Digestion
- Absorption
- Excretion
Gut microbiome function
If we use the analogy that the gut is the pipe, we could think of it as a passageway for food. But a passageway doesn’t really make anything more than being a means of transportation.
Here is where the gut microbiome comes into play. The gut microbiome is a rich ecosystem with different microorganisms (bacteria, fungi, yeast, parasites, and viruses) that live inside the pipe. These are the ones actually doing all the work and the ones that impact our health.
The amount of microorganisms that live in our gut is estimated to be around 100 trillion. That’s right, Trillion with a T.
They play an important role in regular digestion, fortifying the immune system, and managing energy and mood levels.
A few interesting facts about the gut microbiome is that it is responsible for producing around:
- 50% of dopamine levels in the body,
- 95% of serotonin, and
- 70% of the immune system cells.
Saying it in other words, besides being responsible for improving your digestion, gut health plays a big role in mental health, emotional health, and physical health.
This is why gut health is so important; it plays a big role in almost every aspect of our body.
Signs of a healthy gut
When talking about the gut bacteria, you usually find two types in your body.
These are the good bacteria and the bad bacteria.
Here the important thing to know is that you need a balance of both.
Having an unbalance in the gut is known as dysbiosis, which is the main reason why you may have an unhealthy gut.
On the other hand, having the correct balance gives you the following advantages.
1. Feel more energetic
There are physiological pathways to use energy that are impacted by the microbiome difference.
For example, why may someone have fatigue?
There is a common pathway called ATP (adenosine triphosphate), which is a molecule that produces energy.
If someone complains about fatigue, it is usually because the body has become inefficient at producing ATP.
A gut health problem does not always cause this, but if you´ve been to the doctor and excluded the usual suspects (like thyroid problems), then having a healthy gut will most likely improve your body to produce ATP and have more energy.
2. Get sick less often
Think of the immune system as the army that protects your body from foreign invaders. 70% of your soldiers are stationed in the gut (base camp). Your troops are ready to deploy whenever there is a virus or bacteria.
If you don’t have a good balance between good and bad bacteria, it’s like having lazy soldiers that are not working out and preparing for battle. This, in the end, will diminish the troops’ performance.
Here is where medicines like antibiotics come and help (short term). The problem with antibiotics is that they kill bad and good bacteria.
If you keep taking medicines like antibiotics, you are creating an environment where you will most likely get sick again (long-term).
Using the same analogy as before, if you take antibiotics, you will eliminate the enemy but sacrifice your own troops. That means that when the next invader comes in, you will have fewer troops to deploy.
This becomes a cycle that, if not treated properly, could keep making you get sick again.
3. Improve insulin resistance
Blood glucose in our bodies is controlled by the production of insulin in the body.
Bacteria in the gut actually break down food substrates like fiber to synthesize chemicals like short-chain fatty acids. These eventually then help regulate how the pancreas synthesizes insulin.
This is where taking enough fiber or complex carbohydrates will help regulate and keep stable the blood glucose in the body.
4. Mental clarity
Mind and gut connection is something that is not new and has been researched many times.
There are 3 ways the gut and the brain talk to each other.
These are:
- Vagus Nerve: (highway to connect the nervous system with the gut)
- Enteric nervous system (considered the second brain)
- Gut-brain axis ( bi-direction communication between gut and brain)
If you’ve ever heard the term brain fog, well, it’s one of the symptoms you might get from an unhealthy gut. On the other hand, mental clarity will be a healthy gut.
This happens due to inflammation inside the body. If you are constantly eating inflammatory foods, you will get foggy.
5. Emotional wellbeing
Even though people are rational, remember that emotions are what trigger action.
If you’ve ever heard about the happy chemicals, then you’ve heard about EDSO. This is an acronym used for Endorphins, Dopamine, Serotonin, and Oxytocin.
As mentioned earlier, gut health is responsible for the majority of the production of dopamine and serotonin.
Having the body optimally producing these chemicals will give you emotional well-being.
6. Adequate Digestion
We discuss the digestive process in more detail, but in summary, if you have any symptoms like bloating, constipation, heartburn, or diarrhea, you probably don’t have adequate digestion.
Symptoms of an unhealthy gut
Since we already described a healthy gut, the symptoms from an unhealthy gut will sound repetitive since it is basically the opposite. This is why we will only list them, so you know them if some of them escaped.
- Autoimmune conditions
- Leaky Gut Syndrome
- Type 2 Diabetes
- Neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s
- Anxiety
- Depression
Cleanse The Gut – 5 Simple Steps Gut Healing Protocol
The most important factor in improving your gut will be to adding gut diversity.
This means you should constantly eat different vegetables, fruits, whole grains, nuts, seeds, etc.
But this is the most important factor in maintaining good gut health. If you have bad gut health, here is a 5 step protocol you could try to implement.
1. Add Intermittent Fasting (Eliminate Bad Bacteria)
It has been studied that bad bacteria have a shorter doubling time. This is a term used to define how easily they reproduce.
Having a shorter doubling can be interpreted as bad bacteria needing to be constantly fed to survive in the gut. Unlike good bacteria, they can actually survive longer without having food.
What does this mean?
If you go for periods without food, you will naturally balance your gut with more good bacteria and eliminate the bad bacteria from your gut.
This will eventually create a better environment for good bacteria to flourish and avoid dysbiosis.
2. Add Prebiotics (Feed Good Bacteria)
After you have eliminated the bad bacteria, you need to feed or fertilize the good bacteria.
Here is where prebiotics or fiber plays a critical role.
But what exactly do prebiotics do?
When gut microbes metabolize prebiotics, some produce short-chain fatty acids like butyrate, acetate, and propionate.
These short-chain fatty acids nourish cells that line the gut.
Prebiotics reduce the risk for cancer, enhance calcium absorption, and relieve constipation and diarrhea.
The average American consumes 16 g/day of fiber while the recommendation is 25-38 g/day
Best Prebiotic Foods:
- Onion
- Banana
- Apple
- Chicory
- Garlic
- Asparagus
3. Then Comes The Probiotics (Add Good Bacteria)
Probiotics are “live microorganisms that, when administered in adequate amounts, confer a health benefit on the host.”
So now that you have killed the bad bacteria, fertilize the gut with fiber, now you should add the good bacteria.
If you are constantly eating probiotic foods or supplements, but your gut doesn’t have an adequate environment, then the effect will be reduced.
Sometimes probiotics and fermented foods are associated as the same. Even though you need the process of fermentation to get probiotic foods, many fermented foods and beverages don’t get the living microorganisms you need to be considered a probiotic.
Best Probiotic Foods:
- Yogurt
- Sauerkraut
- Pickels
- Kombucha
- Kimchi
- Cottage Cheese
4. Include Polyphenols (Boost Good Bacteria)
Polyphenols are micronutrients contained in our food that exert beneficial effects on our microbiome.
They help healthy bacteria grow and kill bad bacteria while reducing the number of toxins released by bad bacteria.
At the same time, they play a huge role in inflammatory responses in our body and our immune system.
Pain and fatigue will also be reduced by taking polyphenols.
Best Polyphenol Foods:
- Berries
- Nuts
- Vegetables
- Coffee
- Chocolate
5. Manage stress levels (Keep Good Bacteria)
The relationship between stress and health has been studied over and over again.
The thing is that it also plays an important role in gut health.
This means that if you do the 4 steps mentioned before but live a stressed life, you will have slower progress.
The 2 best ways to manage stress are by doing regular exercise and meditation that in the end, will help you sleep better.
What are the worst foods for your gut
The foods you are trying to avoid are the ones that kill the good bacteria or that fuel the bad bacteria.
Here is a list of the most common foods you should try to avoid for a healthy gut.
1. Process foods
Let’s define what processed foods are.
There are whole foods, minimally processed foods, and heavily processed foods.
Using an example with strawberries, a natural strawberry would be the whole food, a frozen berry would be a minimal processed food, and a jam or jelly made with strawberries would be the heavily processed food.
The problem with processed foods is that they usually lose their natural components (like fiber and micronutrients) during the process.
At the same time, they contain added ingredients that will fuel the harmful bacteria.
In a grocery store, this means staying outside the aisles.
2. Refined Sugar
Sugar is another component that feeds bad bacteria (like candida).
It can actually act as a signal that impedes proteins that allow good bacterial growth.
The worst part, this is a harder component to identify since it can be added to labels with different names like anhydrous dextrose, corn syrup, cane sugar, fructose, glucose, sucrose, etc.
Avoiding refined sugar will make the bad bacteria starve.
3. Artificial Sweetener
Artificial sweeteners can affect gut bacteria in a way that the body can become intolerant to glucose.
A study found that taking artificial sweeteners like saccharin, splenda, and aspartame will alter the proportion of the gut bacteria reducing the bacteroidetes (good bacteria) and increasing the firmicutes (bad bacteria).
This change in gut proportion is correlated with insulin resistance, glucose intolerance, and obesity.
4. Antibiotics
Even though antibiotics are very effective for curing diseases, they have 2 problems.
- First: when we start using higher doses of antibiotics in the body, the pathogens (diseases) find a way to learn and resist the antibiotics in the future. This is why if you keep taking the same antibiotic over and over again, it will start to lose its effect. You will have to change to a different antibiotic if you get sick again.
- Second: As previously mentioned, antibiotics kill good and bad bacteria, so eventually, you won’t let your body heal naturally.
5. Snacking
This is the opposite of doing intermittent fasting; you could call snacking “intermittent eating”.
So again, this will feed the bad bacteria, which you want to avoid at all costs.
Try to do intermittent fasting instead.
6. Alcoholic Drinks
There are good news and bad news.
The good news
Most of the microbiome lives in the large intestine and the colon, which means that when you drink alcohol, when it gets to your colon it doesn’t have as much ethanol as it should.
At the same time, alcohols like wine contain polyphenols, which we said are great for the gut.
The bad news
Most alcohols don’t contain polyphenols, and consuming them in large amounts will do more damage than good.
You’ve already heard this saying, drink with moderation and choose the best alcohol drinks for gut.
7. Gluten
Gluten is indigestible, which means it can’t break down properly in the digestive system.
This will cause inflammation in the gut, especially in people that are sensitive to gluten.
Final thoughts
The gut microbiome is an incredible ecosystem that dictates the health of our bodies.
Understanding how to nourish it will positively impact your physical, mental, emotional, and internal processes like improving digestion and the immune system.
Make sure to follow the 5 steps to heal your gut and follow it as a daily habit.
You will be amazed at the results.
