Gut Health

Technically speaking gut health is the physical state and function of the gastrointestinal system. It plays a pretty key role in our lives, not only does it break down food to provide our bodies with nutrients and energy but a healthy gut also helps us to fight off infections. In recent years gut health has also been linked to emotional stress levels and chronic illnesses, such as type 2 diabetes, so it’s clear it’s important to keep a healthy gut. Here we look at intolerances and food allergies before examining how we can understand our gut health and keep it healthy.

The rise of food allergies and intolerances

Firstly, food allergies and intolerances are very different, but we are grouping them here for a reason. A food allergy causes an immune system reaction that affects numerous organs in the body and can be severe enough to be life-threating. A food intolerance can cause similar symptoms to an allergy but are usually less serious than those caused by an allergy and often solely linked to digestive problems. This often causes confusion and so it’s difficult to trust the stats on the rise of food allergies. However Kari Nadeau, an allergy specialist, has stated that the rate of food allergies worldwide has increased from around 3% of the population in 1960 to around 7% in 2018.

So why the rise? There are many theories out there in this area as to why we are seeing this rise, such as less vitamin D in our lifestyles, and the level of bacteria we are now exposed to. However, the one we are focusing on here is the theory that your gut has to be exposed to and generate different types of microorganisms and healthy bacteria. There is evidence that the more antibiotics a child is given the more likely they are to develop a food allergy because antibiotics kill healthy bacteria, which is used by your gut to help process and deal with different types of foods. It is therefore shown that a healthy gut is one that promotes healthy bacteria.

Tips for understanding your gut health

So we have touched on what gut health is, why it’s important and why it’s becoming more prevalent in our lifestyles. But how can we get an understanding of our own gut health and what should we be looking after? Without in depth medical testing, it is hard to get a true picture of our gut health but there are signs which can indicate an unhealthy gut:

  1. Upset stomach; let’s not go into the detail, we all know the symptoms but an upset stomach can be a sign that our gut is having difficulty processing and absorbing food.
  2. A high sugar diet; there have been studies that link a diet containing high refined sugar can decrease the amount of good bacteria in our diets and can increase the level of inflammation in the body.
  3. Constant fatigue; this comes two fold, first the majority of our serotonin, a hormone that effects mood and sleep, is produced in our gut. So an unhealthy gut can cause us issues sleeping and lead to fatigue. Equally an unhealthy gut will have difficultly digesting the nutrients and vitamins in our food and therefore decreasing our energy levels.
  4. Autoimmune conditions; there is growing research that an unhealthy gut can impact the function of our immune system, leading to our body attacking itself and causing autoimmune diseases such as
  5. Weight changes; an impact of something we have already touched on but an unhealthy gut can lead to unintentional weight changes. An unhealthy gut can limit the body’s ability to absorb nutrients, regulate bloody sugar and store fat. All of these can cause both weight gain and weight loss.

How to manage your gut health:

We have touched on the signs of poor gut health and here we provide a few tip that can help improve your gut help and ways of managing it through diet and lifestyle:

  1. Eat a varied diet; as we’ve touched on it’s important to get some good bacteria in to your gut. One of the ways you can do this is eating a diverse range of foods. A diverse range of food type can lead to more diverse microbiomes in your gut and this is healthy!
  2. Reduce stress levels: high level off stress can take its toll on your body physically as well as mental, and research is showing a link between stress and gastrointestinal problems and lowering your stress levels can lead to a healthier gut.
  3. Prebiotics; foods known as prebiotics promote the growth of healthy bacteria in the gut. They can be found in foods such as fruits, vegetables and whole grains. They are also known to reduce insulin and cholesterol
  4. Diet change; there are some simple changes to your diet that can promote good gut health, such as reducing the level of processed high sugar, high fat foods that you eat. Increasing the level of fibre in your diet is also key and research has shown that a high fibre diet contributes significantly to healthy gut microbiome.