Heal Your Gut, Naturally!

Why is there so much buzz these days about healing your gut? 

Well, you may have seen or heard the following quote…

“All disease begins in the gut.”  -Hippocrates - 2,000 years ago. 

Too bad it has taken us 2000 years to realize this is largely true, and start doing something about it. 

So, what is the big deal about the gut?

Gut health is critical to our overall health. An unhealthy gut contributes to:

• Diabetes, obesity

• Rheumatoid arthritis 

• Autism spectrum disorder, Alzheimer’s 

• Depression, anxiety, bipolar, schizophrenia 

• Chronic fatigue syndrome, skin and joint problems and more

Some have referred to the gut as our second brain. More than 400 times as much serotonin is made in the gut as in the brain. Serotonin is our “awake, meet the day, feel good” hormone. Serotonin also gets converted to melatonin, our “slow down, relax, go to sleep” hormone. And, over 70% of our immune system is in our gut. And, our gut is what chooses what we keep for nourishment, and what we discard from the food we eat. 

A healthy gut will perform these and other functions well. An unhealthy gut, of course, will not.

Instead of “You are what you eat”, in reality you are what your gut lets into your body.

I think you will see that supporting intestinal health and restoring integrity of the gut barrier will be one of the most important goals of medicine in the 21st century. 

There are 2 variables relative to gut health:

1. Gut flora – the bugs
2. Gut barrier – the lining

A healthy garden needs healthy soil. 

Let’s talk about gut flora first… “the bugs”.

Our gut is home to 100,000,000,000,000 (100 trillion) microorganisms. That is 10 times more bacteria than all the human cells in the entire body. And includes over 1,000 known bacterial species. You could say we’re more bacteria than we are human. 

What does gut flora do for us?

1) Metabolic activity

• Rids potential precancerous compounds

• Synthesizes vitamins such as biotin, folate, Vit K

• Helps with absorption of minerals like calcium, magnesium, iron

• Converts non-digestible carbs (fiber) to short chain fatty acids

Short chain fatty acids (SCFA’s) are produced by the friendly bacteria in your gut, when complex carbohydrates ferment. They are our friends! SCFA’s:

• are a main source of energy for cells lining the colon

• increase fat burning and decrease fat storage, and curb cravings

• block cholesterol production

• help regulate blood sugar

• decrease inflammation and protect the gut lining.

We want more of all that, right?!

So, if short chain fatty acids are so great, how can we get more of them?

Food sources of SCFA’s:

• Garlic, onion, leeks, asparagus, artichokes
• Apples, carrots, oranges
• Resistant starch
  • Green bananas and plantains
  • Legumes (soaked and sprouted)
  • Cooked and cooled potatoes and rice

What else do gut flora do?

2) Structural support

• Promote gut motility (keep things moving, which is really important)

• Short chain fatty acids (from fermentation) 

  • Stimulate growth of the epithelial cells lining colon

  • Inhibit cell proliferation, which limits cancer in colon

And lastly, gut flora have

3) Protective functions

• Create a sticky gel-like substance coating the wall of the tube

• Gatekeeper - keep certain things out of our body, and let certain things in

• Form crucial line of resistance to pathogens. I think of soldiers lined up.

Sounds like it all works great, huh?

The problem is that if we were born to mothers with poor gut flora or we weren’t breast-fed, we are more likely to develop unhealthy gut bacteria from the get-go.

And, our modern lifestyle directly contributes to unhealthy gut flora by way of: 

• Antibiotics, hormonal birth control, NSAIDS such as ibuprofen 

• Simple carbs, sugar and processed foods 

• Diets low in fermentable fibers 

• Dietary toxins like wheat and industrial seed oils

• Chronic stress 

• Chronic infections

These differences in gut flora may predict overweight, diabetes, depression and other health problems.

Did you hear about the mice study where slim mice were given the gut bugs from obese mice, and they become obese?

Or, the mother who couldn’t get rid of Clostridium difficile, a wicked diarrhea illness, so she accepted a fecal implant from her obese daughter. The C. diff. went away, but she immediately started gaining excess weight herself.

Must be something to those gut bugs, huh?

The gi tract is like a garden hose from mouth to anus. 

So, we’ve talked about the bugs. Now, let’s talk about the gut barrier… the lining.

Technically, anything inside the gut is “outside” the body. Anything that goes in the mouth and isn’t digested will pass out the other end. 

One of the most important functions of the gut lining is to be a barrier, preventing foreign substances and undigested food from entering the body. 

With a healthy gut barrier a substance does not pass from the gut into the bloodstream until your gut decides to let it in.

Unfortunately, many of us have intestinal permeability, more commonly known as leaky gut. In this case bacteria, viruses, fungus and undigested proteins easily enter the bloodstream and can wreak havoc.

The body sees these as invaders and mounts an antibody response. This results in autoimmune disease like Hashimoto’s, Graves, Lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and celiac; or a variety of chronic illness such as depression, obesity, skin disease, joint pain, brain issues, etc.

It is important to know that a leaky gut will not necessarily give you gut symptoms. Your symptoms will be related to the location(s) the invaders choose to attack.

So, how to restore gut integrity or, in other words, heal leaky gut?

• Avoid foods/chemicals that irritate the gut such as gluten, arsenic, and BPA.
• Drink healing bone broth or meat stock regularly.
• Restore beneficial gut flora
• Treat parasites, yeast, bad bugs.
• Manage your stress.

How about restoring beneficial gut flora?

• Eat fermentable fibers (pre-biotic foods)

• Eat fermented foods (pro-biotic foods)

• Take prebiotic and/or probiotic supplements

Wait. What? Pre-biotics and Pro-biotics? What is the difference?

PREBIOTICS feed the good bacteria in your gut when complex carbs ferment in the colon. Remember, this fermentation process makes our good friends, the short chain fatty acids (SCFA’s). And, SCFA’s make us feel full, decrease cholesterol, regulate blood sugar, decrease inflammation and protect the gut lining.

PREBIOTIC FOODS INCLUDE:

• Sweet potato, leeks, onion, garlic
• Green plantains and bananas, cooked and cooled potatoes and rice
• Asparagus, artichokes, apples, carrots and oranges

PROBIOTICS are beneficial bacteria, whether your own, or what you take in via probiotic foods or supplements.

What is important to understand is that taking probiotic supplements does NOT actually increase the numbers of beneficial bacteria in your gut. There are some important temporary beneficial effects in certain circumstances, but mostly you want to get your probiotics from FOOD. 

And you want to feed prebiotics to your probiotics. This is what will increase the amount of probiotics. Refer to above prebiotic food sources for this.

For 2 million years humans have taken in probiotic bacteria in foods. This is how we are adapted to getting microbes. The microbes in food can better survive the stomach acid to reach the colon. Probiotic foods have significantly higher concentration of microbes than supplements, and better bioavailability of mood-regulating B vitamins, magnesium, zinc and vitamin D. 

PROBIOTIC FOODS INCLUDE: (roughly listed in order, from highest concentration microbes to least)

• Sauerkraut, kimchee – made with cabbage, beets, herbs, etc
• Kefir – milk, water, or coconut water based
• Full fat, plain yogurt – if dairy intol try goat/sheep milk or A2 cow milk
• Beet kvass
• Miso soup
• Kombucha

I recommend starting with a commitment to get at least one serving of a probiotic food every day. Often, it takes a little getting used to the taste of some of them, but that will come with time. So persevere. Before long, increase to a commitment to getting 3 servings of preferably different probiotic foods every day. Each one has a different microbe profile so you want to get a mixture.

We want not only more good bacteria, but more diverse good bacteria.

Remember the breast milk of any animal is very sweet. For this reason, animal milk is a simple carb already. Make sure to use plain kefirs and yogurts, even if you add your own fruit or a small amount of honey on occasion.

HEAR ME… lowfat, fruit added yogurt is not really a health food. Tons of sugar, and missing the milk fat, which is where the value of the milk is.

Finally, if you feel you must take a prebiotic or probiotic supplement for a period of time, please use reputable, high quality products. And, always start with a very low dose and build slowly. Some people are extremely sensitive to supplemental pre- and pro-biotics. 

The primary probiotic supplement I recommend is a very high quality soil based product, Daily Synbiotic by Seed. This product can only be purchased from their website. They sell refills in a sleeve so you only purchase the bottle once. Better for the environment but a little complicated up front.

If you have tried healing your gut yourself but still have unwanted symptoms, you may need further measures or objective guidance. I would love to support you in your journey to heal your gut. Contact me to get started today!