What Is Gut Health?

Gut Health consists of many things. It requires we have a healthy microbiome, address any infections, and especially the food we eat. The gut is responsible for being at the root of most chronic disease depending on if it’s healthy or not. Many believe all disease begins in the gut. Today, in our modern world, there are many things that can destroy the gut, so we have to be on guard.

How To Have A Healthy Gut

Microbiome-

The microbiome is the community of bacteria that live on us and in us. We are also made of viruses and fungus. Science shows that we are 4-10x more bacteria cells than we are human cells. The bacteria, or probiotics create something called postbiotics. These are beneficial molecules that they make for us. For example, serotonin is a neurotransmitter that is responsible for good mood and happiness. Even know this is for the brain, 90% of it is created in the gut via microbes. In order to do this, they need prebiotics. This is basically food for the bacteria, which we will cover later.

Infections-

It’s important to address any type of infections that we may have. So many of carry these around without knowing it. Doing a gut test will really help with this. Genova Diagnostics is a great one. Other things we can do is to take herbs on a regular basis to prevent in infections. Eat a diet that creates an environment that makes it difficult for pathogenic microbes to thrive.

Nutrition-

The basis of healthy nutrition is a whole foods diet. Following foundational principles is key. There is no one size fits all diet, and we really have to do what works for us. A real food is something that we would find in nature. You won’t find fruity pebbles in nature. Look for vegetables, meat, nuts, seeds, legumes, grains, and fruit. Also, just because it’s a real food doesn’t mean it’s right for you, listen to your body.

Things To Avoid

1. Haphazard use of antibiotics

Antibiotics can be great and life saving in the right circumstance, but they’re often prescribed unnecessarily. The CDC had published an article showing that at least one third of all antibiotic prescriptions are unnecessary. This can lead to a host of problems. Antibiotics generally kill every microbe in sight, both beneficial and pathogenic. This gets rid of a lot of beneficial bacteria, and it may be very hard to recover, if at all. These are often prescribed for viruses like the common cold. That’s an issue because antibiotics don’t even kill viruses, they’re designed to kill bacteria. The other issue is that it has created antibiotic resistant forms of bacteria. This means that they wont kill these pathogenic organisms. This is a huge problem because we may not have anything to get these infections under control. Another thing is that 80% of all antibiotics are actually used in livestock to fatten up animals, but that is a whole nother story.

2. Pesticides

Pesticides, herbicides, fungicides have been proven to be neurogenic, or estrogenic. This means that it disrupts the nervous system, or the endocrine system. It messes with the pests reproduction via hormones. Also, these are designed to kill very small things, this includes our microbiome. We are made up of these tiny organisms, and pesticides have a profound impact on them.

3. Sugar

Sugar also has a profound impact on the microbiome. For one, it feeds opportunist bacteria. Opportunist bacteria are organisms that can play a beneficial roll, but could cause disease if they’re not on check. Sugar has been shown to increase opportunists while decreasing beneficial microbes.

Treatments To Enhance The Gut

1. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT)

HBOT is increased oxygen availability and increased atmospheric pressure that is done inside a chamber. The increased oxygen absorption results in the bodies healing capabilities significantly increased.

2. Ozone

Ozone is a gas (O3) that is used in many industries, but for our purposes, we will discuss the health aspect. It was first used back in 1871 in the medical industry. In 1896, Nichola Tesla patented the first ozone generator in the United States. In WW1, it was used to treat infected wounds. In the 1960s, ozone started to be scientifically studied. Today, we have many books, snd research papers on ozone therapy.

3. Fiber

Fiber is a form of carbohydrates. To keep it simple, there are only two types, soluble and insoluble fiber. Soluble fiber feeds the microbiome and helps create short chain fatty acids. Insoluble fiber is resistant to being broken down and adds bulk to stool. It’s worth mentioning resistant starch. Resistant starch is starch that is resistant to digestion and serves as food for microbes. Some great sources are tiger nuts, green bananas, and heated and cooled potatoes.