As far back as ancient Greek civilization, wise men of medicine understood that all disease begins in the gut. It manifests throughout the body, but it all begins in the gut. Knowing that, let’s explore why we need good gut health, what that looks like, how we can achieve it, and what benefits we can hope to gain by doing the intentional work of building a happy and healthy gut that supports a resilient life!
The human digestive system is made up of the GI tract—a series of hollow organs joined in a long, twisting tube—plus the liver, pancreas, and gall bladder. Its number one job is to process food into energy for the body. Bacteria in the gut—also called flora or the microbiome are important for your overall health and wellbeing. These microbes can be beneficial, or they can be harmful. Whichever ones you feed will thrive. Eating raw, clean, organic foods minimally processed and high in fiber will feed your gut with good microbes. Eating empty calories from highly processed foods with toxic chemicals will feed the harmful microbes. Having enough beneficial microbes in your gut will help keep harmful bacteria at bay. Having a predominance of unhealthy or harmful bacteria, will lead to ill health. One of my favorite products to support good gut composition is GI Replenish (find it here). It supports a healthy inflammatory response, helps to create a gut that isn’t permeable, and increases the resilience of your gut’s lining!
Along with the digestive tract and the supporting organs, hormones, blood, and nerves all interact with the digestive system to keep it fine-tuned and doing its job. With such a complex system, and with a variety of good and bad foods going in and coming out several times a day, there are plenty of opportunities for things to go wrong! The ten most common digestive conditions are: reflux, peptic ulcer and gastritis, gastroenteritis, gluten sensitivity/Celiac disease, irritable bowel syndrome, constipation, hemorrhoids, diverticulosis, and gallstones. Last year, sufferers spent billions of dollars treating these conditions with pharmaceuticals or over the counter, symptom-suppressing drugs which only added more stress to their bodies. That cost is incalculable.
The gut microbiome has an impact on the rest of the body as it communicates with the immune system dictating which diseases should be turned off and which should be turned on. It also interacts with our nervous system to impact the production of neurotransmitters, the body’s chemical messengers. These messages help you move your limbs, feel sensations, and keep your heart beating. Our gut microbiome can change everything from our health destiny to our mood at this very moment! Gut microbes can either turn on systemic inflammation leading to disease, or they can turn it off. But make no mistake, they are NOT neutral!
Patients who struggle with neurological and psychiatric disorders, including depression, schizophrenia, autism, Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis have been reported to show an imbalance of bacteria in the gut. This poor composition is known as dysbiosis. The organisms that are more prevalent in patients with neurological diseases are inflammatory in nature (the bad guys), while those that are less prevalent in these patients tend to promote the anti-inflammatory response (the good guys). You don’t have to be a scientist to understand the fundamentals of good gut health. When the harmful microbes outnumber the beneficial microbes, your gut is not happy nor healthy. When stress, sugar, dangerous chemicals, heavy metals, herbicides, parasitic infection, or Candida overgrowth cause an imbalance in the good/bad bacteria, your gut will be unhealthy. When these same agents cause micro-tears in the epithelial cells that line the gut, you have a leaky gut or intestinal permeability, also a sign of poor gut health.
So, the contents of the gut—the microbes that influence every organ and system of your body can be off balance, or the structure of the gut—the epithelial lining, the tight joint cells, and the mucosal lining may be damaged from stress or toxic chemicals. Usually, these two conditions go hand in hand, and when they do, we know that the gut is unhealthy. Top signs that your gut is unhealthy include inability to lose weight even when eating correctly and exercising, irritable bowel syndrome, mental health issues (anxiety, depression, autism, OCD, and dementia), high cholesterol despite lifestyle changes to bring it down, skin issues like eczema and psoriasis, chronic urinary tract infections, out of control pollen or pet allergies, prone to yeast infections, chronic constipation, asthma, cancer, insomnia, chronic low energy, and autoimmune disease.
All these seemingly unrelated complaints and conditions are from the same root source—an unhealthy gut. Learning to care for your gut health will benefit your entire body in ways you cannot imagine!