Gut Health - The Secret to Your Health

Your Gut Is More Than A Food Tube

Your gut isn’t just where the food you eat is digested. The activity and processes in your gut have direct connections to nearly every other system, organ, and process in your body. In fact, more and more research concludes that the health of your gut greatly determines your overall health. Let’s start with a brief overview of the human gut.

The human gut includes the mouth to the anus and everything in between. It is tasked with transforming the food you eat into nutrients your body can use to make energy (ATP), protecting you from dangerous pathogens from the outside world (the gut is actually outside of our bodies!), and is also home to over 100 trillion microbial cells that we refer to as “the gut microbiome”. These microbes include bacteria, yeasts, and viruses. Most of the research is on the different types of bacteria that live in your gut, so I’ll focus on these. The majority of bacteria in your gut are essential to good health and are termed “beneficial”, but there are also pathogenic bacteria, yeasts, and viruses that can overgrow in your gut leading to symptoms and disease. The bacteria in your gut impact almost every aspect of your health. For example, the type of bacteria you have living in your gut affects blood sugar balance, detoxification, digestion, hormone regulation, inflammation, moods, sleep, body weight, bone density, cardiovascular health, and the immune system. In general, the more variety and the greater the number of beneficial bacteria that reside in your gut, the healthier you are and the better you’ll feel and perform.

The Gut-Brain Axis

The gut-brain axis is the bidirectional communication between your gut bacteria and your brain. Your gut bacteria produce and use neurotransmitters (such as serotonin and dopamine) and gut hormones. In fact, 90% of serotonin is produced in the gut. You can imagine how an imbalance in your gut bacteria could negatively affect your moods and mental well-being. In fact, it’s been well established that an imbalance in gut bacteria can disrupt neurotransmitter production resulting in mood swings, anxiety, depression, poor sleep, difficulty concentrating, burnout, and make you more susceptible to post traumatic stress injuries (PTSIs). We’ve also recently learned that trauma early on in life, and even during the prenatal period, can alter the types of bacteria in the gut and damage the gut, making you more susceptible to anxiety, depression, and PTSIs later in life. Exposure to trauma as an adult also seems to negatively change the gut microbiota and gut barrier health. Improving your gut health can strengthen psychological resilience as well as serve as an important part of treatment. There is lots of ongoing research in mice and humans in this area with promising results.

SOS Messages From Your Gut

Your gut is a fantastic communicator and lets you know when it’s suffering. A few common signs and symptoms include:

• Gas and bloating
• Heartburn and indigestion
• Diarrhea
• Constipation
• Mucus in stool, hard stools, or floating stools
• Bad breath
• Bleeding gums
• Tooth decay
• Excessive burping
• Stomach or intestinal discomfort or pain

In addition, if you have severe stomach pain, blood in your stool, chronic vomiting especially with blood, please go see your doctor immediately. If you chronically have any of these symptoms, I'd recommend seeing your doctor.

A few less obvious signs that suggest that your gut could use some love and attention include:

• Overweight, weight gain, or difficulty losing weight
• Elevated blood sugar or diabetes
• Depression
• Fatigue
• Joint pain
• Cardiovascular disease
• Cognitive decline
• Neurological issues
• Autoimmune disease
• Skin problems

Creating A Super Gut

Let’s change gears here and focus on how to create a super gut. The benefits are endless, but they include better blood sugar control, weight loss and weight maintenance, cardiovascular health, a stronger immune system, better moods and well-being, and improved sleep quality. All that just by focusing on those little critters in your gut!

Your super gut toolkit includes leveraging these five areas:

1. Feed your beneficial bacteria
2. Stress modulation
3. Sleep
4. Exercise
5. Avoiding/limiting exposure to gut assailants

1. Feeding Your Beneficial Bacteria

Your specific nutrition needs are individualized. In general, ways to improve gut health include the following:

• Eat real, unprocessed, or minimally processed food. Real foods include fruits, vegetables, whole grains, meats, fish, eggs, dairy, nuts, seeds, beans and lentils, and olive oil. In other words, foods that are as close to their natural state as possible. If you do eat processed foods/or foods that come in a package, choose foods that have five ingredients or less, and make sure the ingredients are actual foods not chemicals.
• Aim for 8-10 servings of fruits and vegetables. Eat the rainbow. Fruits and vegetables contain vitamins and minerals important to your health.They also contain what are called phytonutrients. These are what plants use to protect themselves from pests and danger. When you eat phytonutrients, also called phytochemicals, they strengthen your body and microbiome too. Fruits and vegetables also contain lots of fiber, which serves as food for the beneficial microbes in your gut.
• Eat 25+ grams of fiber daily. The average American eats only 15 grams of fiber daily. Fiber contains “prebiotics”, which serve as food for the beneficial bacteria in your gut. Consuming adequate fiber increases the number of beneficial bacteria and diversity of bacteria in your gut. When fiber is consumed by certain bacteria, they produce butyrate, a short chain fatty acid, which is critical for a healthy colon and also reduces inflammation in the gut and the brain.
• Eat fermented foods. Fermentation was historically used for food preservation. In the modern day, it’s a fantastic way to create beneficial bacteria that you can ingest. The sugars in the food are broken down by bacteria and yeasts into beneficial bacteria that we then consume. A few examples of fermented foods are yogurt, kimchi, and sauerkraut. You get the most benefit from fermented foods if you also eat enough fiber in your diet. Remember, fiber is food for your beneficial bacteria in your gut.

2. Stress and Your Gut

Your thoughts and emotions have a direct impact on gut function. Have you ever experienced butterflies, lost your appetite, felt nauseated, or had diarrhea before a big event? This is an example of how stress is connected to your gut function. The stress response speeds up movement through your large intestine and slows movement in your stomach and small intestine. It also alters digestive secretions and disrupts the coordinated movements that propel food down your digestive tract. Chronic stress can lead to the development of irritable bowel syndrome, heartburn, and other digestive disorders. The good news is, daily stress reduction training and brain retraining can improve gut discomfort and function.?

3. Sleep and Your Gut

There is a bi-directional relationship between your gut health and your sleep quality. Your sleep impacts the health of your gut and the bacteria in your gut impacts your sleep quality. Sleep deprivation, poor quality sleep, or going to sleep and waking at different times each day leads to changes in your gut microbiome diversity and a reduced number of beneficial bacteria. The good news is, improving your gut microbiome may improve your sleep. A recent study using a prebiotic (think higher fiber) diet buffered psychological stress and improved sleep. Another study observed better sleep quality and less sleepiness in participants with more diversity of the gut microbiota and healthier microbial richness. Although the research on gut microbiota and sleep is still in its infancy, data indicates that improving your gut health may result in more restorative zzz’s.

4. Exercise and Your Gut

Exercise has been shown to improve the diversity and amount of beneficial bacteria in the gut. It also enhances the overall health of gut tissue. All types of exercise appear to be beneficial, so pick something that you enjoy and you’ll stick to regularly. Exercise is a healthy stress on your body and has a hormetic effect. In other words, your body makes healthy adaptations to the stress of exercise and becomes stronger. However, too much exercise, or overtraining, can cause damage to the delicate gut lining and reduce beneficial bacteria. Signs of overtraining include fatigue, workouts feel harder than usual, negative moods, sugar cravings, weight gain, and poor sleep. You can monitor your training status by tracking your resting heart rate (RHR) and heart rate variability (HRV). Make sure to get a baseline of RHR and HRV when you are well rested and not overtrained.

5. Avoid Gut Assailants

Just like superman, who is strong and powerful, the bacteria in your gut, when exposed to their version of kryptonite, are weakened and damaged. This damage can lead to negative health outcomes.?

A few examples of gut bacteria kryptonite include:

• Cesarean birth rather than vaginal birth
• Bottle feeding in place of breastfeeding
• Chronic stress exposure
• Trauma and unresolved trauma
• Overtraining
• Sleep deprivation
• Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS)
• Mouthwash and antibiotics
• The Standard American Diet (SAD)
• Excessive sugar and refined starch intake
• Trans fat
• Alcohol
• Tobacco

Take Care of Your Gut and It’ll Take Care of You

Hopefully, you now have a basic understanding of why your gut health is so important to your overall health and how you feel. If you’re hungry for more information about how to support your gut health, check out these other resources:

Webinar on Gut Health with me, Danielle Kawash, through NW3C

Book: Healthy Gut, Healthy You (Ruscio)

Book: Super Gut (Davis)

App: Nerva

App: Headspace

App: Curable

FREE First In Wellness Resources

Don’t miss out on our FREE resources focused on improving your sleep quality, optimizing nutrition, modulating stress, workout programs, and more! Our resources are designed specifically for first responders.?

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