Gut Health – Is it really that important?

Have you taken antibiotics in the last 7 years?  

Chances are you have.  Antibiotics have become a common ‘go to’ for the common cold or even to rule out other minor questionable health issues.  Don’t get me wrong, there’s absolutely a place for antibiotics in our world.  Trouble is, they not only kill your bad gut bacteria, they also kill your wonderful healthy gut bacteria as well!

So chances are if you haven’t topped-up on the good guys at any stage, you’re gut bacteria could be out of balance, and you don’t even know about it!

If you suffer from things like ongoing digestive complaints, allergies, asthma, low energy/foggy brain, food sensitivities and/or skin conditions, you may have an imbalance between your good and bad bacteria in your gut.

This issue can become even more complex, with the question of – is there any pathogenic bacteria like Candida involved? Or if you’ve had the imbalance long enough, it may cause inflammation and a breakdown in your gut wall lining, allowing unwanted nasties to go where they shouldn’t.  My goodness, I could write a whole set of encyclopaedias on this topic!!

Remember the health of your gut determines both your physical and mental health.

Nearly 80% of our immune system and not forgetting our happy hormones (serotonin) are made in our gut.  So as you can see, it’s crucial to keep this side of things ticking along nicely!

Of course, antibiotics aren’t the only thing that can cause this imbalance.  Stress, poor diet, alcohol, older age, pesticides in our food and other medications, are just some of the other ways we can get imbalanced.  We could say ‘life in general’ can be the cause, so we need to constantly replenish our good bacteria to stay on top of it.

So how can you fix it?  First of all… May I say you’re already streets ahead… you’re now in the know!

Next, depending on your symptoms, you may need some tests to nail the exact picture of what’s going on with you.  Also, diet is extremely important and a cheap and easy way to add the ‘goodies’ back naturally.

Focus on adding into your diet with probiotic rich foods such as yoghurt, sauerkraut (chilled, which have the live good bacteria) and heaps of vegetables to name just a few.  Just remember, not all foods are good for everyone so each of us are different.  For example, ripe bananas are an excellent source of prebiotics (good food for the probiotics to eat) but if you have candida (yeast overgrowth) then bananas are too high in sugar for you at this point and you may make things worse!  So these are the types of things you need to look out for.  Finally, consider taking a high quality probiotic to help as well.

So what other foods do you think are probiotic rich?

P.S.  If there’s anyone in your life (friend, family, employee) who feels they want to do better with their health, please share this post. It might be the fresh perspective they need to feel better.