Gut Detox And The Role of Dietary Fibres

‘Detox’ is a fashionable word in the wellness world. But what does it really mean?

Toxins

With a modern lifestyle, you end up ingesting substances that may be toxic to the body:

• Your fruits and vegetables are covered with insecticides and pesticides;
• Traces of cleaning products such as detergents and bleaches stay on your clothes;
• Processed foods have preservatives, thickening chemicals, flavouring agents, food colours, and trans fats;
• Power plants and industrial activities cause heavy metals to get into your soils. Along with wastewater irrigation, they end up in your food and then accumulate in your body;
• Air pollution and smoking can cause many pollutants to enter your lungs, and then through your blood, liver, and bile end up in your digestive tract;
• Bisphenol A (BPA) is an industrial chemical used for making plastics that you use daily; and
• If your body produces oestrogen hormone in excess, traces of it can accumulate in your gut and cause toxic effects.

Natural Detoxification

Your body has natural ways of getting rid of toxins. However, if your intestines gather too much of these toxins, they may overwhelm your body’s detox mechanisms. But how can you find that out?

Signs and Symptoms of Toxin Buildup

Toxins:

• Damage the protective inner lining of your gut, which leads to their entry into your bloodstream and then spread all over the body; and
• Alter the composition of the bacteria in the intestines—reduce the good ones and encourage the bad ones to grow in numbers.

These can lead to the following signs and symptoms:

• Fatigue and lack of energy
• Bloated feeling, diarrhoea, or constipation
• Skin rashes, boils, acne, or eczema
• Mood swings, stress, anxiety, depression, or inability to concentrate
• Disturbed sleep or insomnia
• Cold or sinus problems
• Headaches or migraine
• Food cravings
• Swollen joints and aching muscles
• Bad breath or body odour
• Cellulite or obesity

Do you notice any of these? It does not automatically mean that you have a toxic overload. But recurrent problems of these types would indicate that you need a gut detox.

Gut Detoxification

Goals

Gut detox aims to:

• Remove toxins from the intestines, improving food digestion and helping better absorption of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients; and
• Eliminate harmful gut pathogens that cause various diseases and restore their healthy brethren to adequate numbers.

Strategies

• Less or no processed foods, sugar and salt;
• Regular exercise;
• Alcohol reduction;
• Better quality of sleep; and
• More clean drinking water.

A Quick Fix

There are many articles, websites, and companies promoting a 3-day or 7-day gut detox program called colon cleansing. But these are quick fixes and you can expect just that: stopgap solutions.

The real gut detox is a lifelong process because we don’t live in a perfect world. There will be birthday cakes, alcohol parties, and polluted air; a few nasty infections will need antibiotic treatments. Each will worsen your gut health needing you to nurse it back to normal. This has to be a continuous task and not a short detox course.

Role of Dietary Fibres in Gut Detox

Different types of dietary fibres play varied roles in the intestinal detoxification process.

Water-Soluble Fibres

• Soluble fibres dissolve in water and form a gel-like suspension, mopping up many toxins.
• You get them from legumes such as beans and lentils, apples and citrus fruits.

Water-Insoluble Fibres

• Insoluble fibres bulk up the food in the intestines and speed up toxin elimination through faeces.
• You get them from whole grains, nuts, corn, vegetables like spinach, cauliflower, green beans, and fruits with skins.

Prebiotics

• Prebiotics are a special type of fibres (scientifically, this is not accurate but can suffice for the purpose of this article) that are food to healthy bacteria in your intestines.
• They help increase the population of good bacteria in your gut.
• They are found in vegetables such as green peas, onion, cabbage, and garlic, fruits such as apples and pomegranate, legumes such as chickpeas and lentils, wheat, and cashew.

This article is based on my more detailed article on my Health Sachet website. It has links to scientific references and more reading material. You can go to www.healthsachet.com and search for the following article: