When you hear the word bacteria, you often think of diseases, but your body is full of bacteria, viruses, and fungi. All of this combined makes up your microbiome, and while some bacteria are indeed responsible for diseases, others are essential for your immune system, heart, weight, and even your mental health.
Due to a Western lifestyle, our guts are under considerable strain. The average person in the Netherlands eats a lot of refined carbohydrates. Think, for example, of bread, crackers, pasta, and cookies. Now, most people think this is actually good for the gut because they are fibers. Fibers are indeed good, but only the fibers from vegetables and fruit, along with occasional grains like teff, oats, rice, quinoa, buckwheat, and millet.
What about whole grain products?
These fibers ensure that your blood sugar rises less rapidly, which is positive. However, they can irritate the gut wall more quickly; and especially people who already suffer from gut issues can aggravate their condition with them. Of course, every person is different, and therefore so is every gut. Nevertheless, you can take the above as general orthomolecular advice. In consultations, we also see people recover when they stop eating gluten-containing grains.
What else influences our gut?
Of course, too much of the wrong fibers and too few of the right fibers is only one risk factor for gut problems. Alcohol consumption, smoking, and medication also have a negative effect on the gut. At Charlotte Labee Supplements, we also regularly discuss the influence of toxins. All these factors combined are stressful for the body.
In addition to physical stress, psycho-emotional stress also has a strong influence on the condition of your gut. Everyone has experienced that feeling of a "funny" stomach when tense. Some people, for example, experience diarrhea during stress, while others tend toward constipation.
Conversely, a disturbed gut flora causes mental problems such as brain fog, lack of concentration, and mood swings. The nerves between the brain and the gut are called the gut-brain axis. From gut to brain, this effect is 80%, and from brain to gut, it is 20%. Therefore, gut quality is of great importance for the proper functioning of your cognitive skills and your emotional state.
If this is only for a very short time, it is no problem at all. The gut becomes temporarily more permeable. This is not damage to the mucous membrane, but the tight junctions (a kind of sliding door) open up. The intention of this is for more and faster glucose, water, and salt to be absorbed from the gut into the bloodstream. This increases blood pressure, gives the muscles strength to fight or flee, and gives the brain quick energy to come up with an instant solution.
With chronic stress, however, there is a problem, because the sliding doors stay open for too long, which causes too many bacteria from the gut to enter the bloodstream, as well as pieces of undigested food. This is also called leaky gut. The immune system then works hard to remove this, and this costs a lot of energy.
Perhaps you have had antibiotic courses in your life, sometimes even as a child. This can have a huge negative influence on the gut flora, causing a significant imbalance. A week-long course can result in your gut flora being out of balance for a year to a year and a half.
How can you improve your gut microbiome?
How can you restore the microbiome in your gut? We have listed a number of tips for this:
- Vary your diet and intake of nutrients: This ensures a diverse microbiome, which leads to good gut health. Legumes, beans, and fruit, in particular, contain a lot of fiber and can promote the growth of healthy bacteria.
- Eat fermented foods: Fermented foods like sauerkraut and kefir all contain healthy bacteria, which can lead to a decrease in the amount of pathogenic types of bacteria in the gut.
- Eat as little sugar or other artificial sweeteners as possible: There are indications that artificial sweeteners like aspartame raise blood sugar levels by stimulating the growth of unhealthy bacteria in the gut microbiome.
- Eat prebiotic food: Prebiotics are fibers that stimulate the growth of healthy bacteria. Foods rich in prebiotics include artichokes, bananas, asparagus, oats, and apples.
- Eat whole grains: Whole grains contain plenty of fiber and good carbohydrates like beta-glucan, which are digested by gut bacteria and are beneficial for weight management, diabetes, and other conditions.
- Eat food rich in polyphenols: Polyphenols are plant compounds found in green tea, dark chocolate, olive oil, and whole grains. They are broken down by the microbiome to stimulate healthy bacterial growth.
- Take a pre- and probiotic supplement: Pre- and probiotics are living bacteria that can help restore the gut to a healthy balance.
Measurement is knowledge
Are you still struggling with your gut and/or digestion, or would you like to know exactly what is going on inside? Then it is interesting to do a gut test, after which our gut therapist can tell you all the ins and outs. During your consultation, you will receive a detailed explanation and a great recommendation on how to proceed.
