5 Lifestyle Changes to Rebuild Your Gut Biome
By Chris Brown
Within everyone's gut resides trillions of microbiome creatures made up of bacteria, fungi, viruses, and microbes. These symbiotic beings are crucial for our survival and recent research has found that they may impact our daily lives more than their small stature implies. An individual's microbiome affects the strength of their immune system, digestion, weight, cancer resilience, and even their neurological and mental health states. Paying attention to which types of microbes you encourage in your own body's ecosystem can alter states about yourself which you believe to be static. Everything from your sleep/wake patterns to what you eat affects which bacteria flourish and which die off.
Making these five daily lifestyle changes can impact the ecosystem inside your intestines to transform you into the best, most healthy version of yourself.
Intake "good" bacteria - The body's beneficial microbes, that aid digestion and vital chemical production, can be supplemented by intaking what are considered "good" bacteria in probiotics or fermented foods (like kimchi or kombucha).
Don't feed the "bad" bacteria - On the counter side, stopping habits that support inflammatory or "bad" bacteria is just as important for gut health. Studies have shown that high sugar diets feed bacteria that causes gut issues and brain health concerns. But cheat with artificial sweeteners either, multiple studies have revealed links between aspartame and bacterial strains tied to diabetes and heart disease.
Don't stress about it - Worrying about gut health may counterintuitively lead to gut health problems itself. Even short-term stress can disrupt the gut's microorganisms according to a 2014 study out of Ohio State University. Exactly how this process works isn't fully understood, but keeping stress levels to a minimum can, in turn, make your body operate better.
Sleep, sleep, sleep - Adults who experience inconsistent sleep schedules (especially when sleeping less than seven hours a night) could have diminished gut flora, according to a 2014 study of mice. This biome imbalance can induce body-wide inflammation, which causes a wide range of bodily problems.
Don't accidentally kill your "good" bacteria - While antibiotics have saved millions of lives by eliminating harmful bacteria, they also indiscriminately kill important healthy bacteria in consumers. Once a biome is disrupted by antibiotics, a person must rebuild it for optimal health. Research has found that even six months after an antibiotic regimen a person's microbiome still lacks multiple species of "good" bacteria. Taking antibiotics only when necessary is vital to maintaining a healthy gut. Similarly, disinfecting cleaning products can impact an infant's propensity towards obesity and diabetes by affecting their developing microbiome. This was revealed, according to a 2018 study, to be due to disinfectants' propensity for killing infants' gut flora.
Keeping a diverse ecosystem of small bacteria, fungi, and viruses in your stomach may sound like a queasy concept, but it is a vital relationship for your overall functionality and health. Be on your way to a healthy gut biome by practicing the five simple rules of gut health daily.
To learn more about your health, wellness and fitness, see your local chiropractor at The Joint Chiropractic in Mentor, Ohio.