How To Have A Healthy Gut

Original Post 09/16/2016

Updated 12/06/2021

Know What a Healthy Gut is

A healthy gut is one of the most important functions of our body. It is where nutrients are assimilated in the body. Food is digested. Vitamins, mineral supplements, and everything we ingest provides nutrition for the body. That’s the ideal. However we all know that the ideal environment is hard to create. In this post I want to share what I have learned about gut bacteria. I share from the research I have done, and my own experiments for improving gut health. According to this Web MD article

“Bacteria — along with viruses and fungi — are microbes, and we’re filled with them. For each one of your human cells — that is, for every cell that’s “you” — there are an estimated 10 microbial cells. They live everywhere in your body: on your skin and inside your mouth, your nose, your genitalia, urinary tract, and intestines”

Now, there are bad Bacteria and there are good Bacteria. This same Web MD article also states that “Bacteria are most likely the most abundant microbes in your intestines, and they’re the focus of most scientific study. Michael Snyder, PhD director of Stanford University’s Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine is quoted as saying

“Bacteria line your intestines and help you digest food. During digestion, they make vitamins that are vital for life, send signals to the immune system, and make small molecules that can help your brain work. Without gut bacteria, we wouldn’t be anything. They are a critical part of us and essential to our health,” Snyder says. Ongoing research reveals that people with certain diseases often have a very different mix of bacteria in their intestines compared to healthier people.

Know What Harms a Healthy Gut

Processed foods

Processed foods, including sugar, white bleached flour products and candy are prime foods that damage good bacteria in the gut. Western society has a love affair with fast food restaurants and obesity continues to be a huge problem in the US.

Toxins

From other research I have done, excessive use of antibiotics, contact with pesticides, and food coloring are cause for damaging good gut bacteria. If you do need to use antibiotics, just be sure the good bacteria gets replenished with foods that increase your flora.

This chart also summarizes Dr. William’s views on the foods and toxins that affect our guts negatively or positively.

Changing patterns in the birthing process

Dr David Williams has an excellent article on Lifestyle Habits That Damage Gut Bacteria According to Dr. Williams, “Our first “inoculation” of good gut bacteria occurs as our eyes, nose, lips, and mouth slide through our mother’s birth canal. This transfer of flora plants the “seed” for the initial colonies that begin to populate the respiratory.He goes on and points out in this article that cesarean births have increased from 4.5% of all births in 1965 to 34% in 2009. I have not seen research yet to verify this, but it’s interesting and causes me to question, could this be a factor in the rise of an unhealthy society? Could this be one underlying cause of so many chronic patterns of illness and broken immune systems?

Know What Improves a Healthy Gut

The saying of ‘what you eat is what you are’ couldn’t be more true when it comes to your gut. The kinds of food we ingest have a direct influence on our overall health, both physically, and emotionally. According to Meghan Jardine, M.S., M.B.A., R.D., L.D., C.D.E. seven basic foods that improve gut health are:” Jerusalem artichokes, Bananas., Polenta, Broccoli, Blueberries, Beans and Fermented plan-based foods. “

Two of my favorites from this list are beans, and fermented plant-based food. Black beans are great! They have protein, carbs, and are low on the glycemic index. Fermented plant-based foods, like raw sauerkraut and kefir water provide the much needed live enzymes our intestinal system needs for good health.

'What you eat is what you are' is true and what we eat can have an effect on our gut health within a few days. If we take in toxic foods, or healthy plant based foods will effect the flora and level of healthy enzymes in your intestinal track.

Know The Benefits of a Healthy Gut

Weight loss

There are many benefits from having a healthy gut, too numerous to named them all, but weight loss is one of the benefits. A great food to include in your diet for weight loss is black beans. Like I mentioned earlier, black beans are a great source of protein and carbs, and are low on the glycemic index. By personal experience I have found black beans and eggs to be crucial in effectively losing weight, i.e. a breakfast of black beans along with stir-fried vegetables like onions and tomatoes. Combine this with and one or two eggs and you have a breakfast that satisfies your hunger for most of the forenoon.

I learned this from Tim Ferriss and his Fat Loss via Better Science and Simplicity article. This works! I personally lost 25 lbs in about 3 months using this diet. There are many things I like about this diet. First, it doesn’t starve you. You can eat all you want. And it provides both carbs and proteins, but the healthy kind. The basic principles of the diet are: Eat any vegetables and legumes you want and as much as you want. Eggs are good. No fruit or dairy. No refined carbs.

Strengthened immune system

1. Kefir Water

Another favorite of mine from this list is kefir water. I have been making and using Kefir water for the last couple of years. How to make kefir water may be the subject of another post at another time. There’s a lot of information online that will tell you how to make it. I can testify that it has helped me tremendously in boosting my immune system. It has minimized if not eliminated colds and sinus infections for me. I attribute this to drinking 6 to 8 oz of kefir water a day.

If you don’t want to take the time and effort to make your own kefir water, another great alternative is Kambucha. This drink is readily available in many grocery stores, especially health food stores. The Kefir water and Kambucha both have the beneficial bacteria that will feed your gut and add that much needed good bacteria to maintain a healthy gut. Here is a link to the Kefir Grains I bought Kefir Grains

1. Fermented Vegetables

In addition to kefir water, I have also experimented with fermented vegetables, making raw sauerkraut and fermented red beets. Here is the recipe that I used for the red beets. Here is a sauerkraut recipe that shows the basics of how to make raw sauerkraut. There are some variants to making it, but it really is a simple process and most anyone can do it. Some seal the can while fermenting, others cover the jar with a cloth. I personally use the cloth method.

The fermented foods contain very high contents of good bacteria to feed the gut and are an excellent source of probiotics. You may say I do like to eat sauerkraut, but you have to understand that most sauerkraut purchased in the store or even homemade has been pasteurized. When you pasteurize sauerkraut by canning you kill all those good bacteria and what you end up with is food that may have some nutritional value but will be lacking what you’re looking for, that is good live enzymes to feed the intestinal track.

Improved mental health

There area also mental health benefits to a healthy gut. Psychology Today article entitled The Gut-Brain Connection, Mental Illness, and Disease gives an excellent overview of the gut brain connection. I encourage you to read the article. Here is a brief summary and excerpts from it.

“The gut and brain have a steady ability to communicate via the nervous system, hormones, and the immune system. Some of the microbiome can release neurotransmitters, just like our own neurons do, speaking to the brain in its own language via the vagus nerve.

The body responds to stress (mental or physical) via the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis.

Animal and human studies support the theory that pathogenic bacteria in the gut, such as C. Difficile, or in certain circumstances, H. Pylori, lead to human disease, and not just the obvious direct illnesses, pseudomembranous colitis (link is external)and ulcers. These bacteria also interact with the immune system in the gut to cause the release of inflammatory cytokines, stress steroids, and a systemic stress response ..chronic levels of inflammatory (stress) response also lead to all sorts of chronic disease, for example depressive disorders, high blood pressure, atherosclerosis, autoimmune diseases such as ulcerative colitis and multiple sclerosis.

Understanding how our intestinal system works, what strengthens or weakens it, and the benefits of maintaining a healthy gut should motivate us to make those necessary changes in our diets in order to continue in our journey of living a healthy lifestyle.

Until next time: “Be Well and Stay Healthy.”

References

1. Dr David Williams  article on Lifestyle Habits That Damage Gut Bacteria

2. How gut bacteria works Web MD  article

3. Tim Ferriss and his  Fat Loss via Better Science and Simplicity article.

4. Psychology Today article  The Gut-Brain Connection, Mental Illness, and Disease

5. Link to the Kefir  Grains

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