Gut health: What's eating your gut?
Most people don't know this - but if you are taking steps to heal your gut, without addressing what's damaging it in the first place, you are wasting your time.
Gut health is at the heart of a healthy immune system because 70%-80% of our immune system is in the gut. It can also be the origin of much inflammation, and the point of entry of harmful pathogens + chemicals into our body. A lot of modern-day chronic illnesses occur as a result of poor gut health, so if you are on a health journey, this is an important article to read.
Beyond the obvious like autoimmune diseases, allergies, and eczema, even organs that are seemingly distant from our gut, like the brain, is intimately intertwined with the gut in what is known as the gut-brain axis. I would even venture as far as to say - tell me an organ that is NOT affected by poor gut health!
So if you are here, it means you care about your gut health - well-done, that’s the first step! But if you are scanning this article for the ‘best’ gut healing supplement - you are in for a SHOCK.
Gut health is NOT achieved with supplements like probiotics, colostrum, or glutamine.
You might as well flush these expensive supplements down the toilet if you are not addressing important DISRUPTERS of gut health.
I like to think of improving gut health as a two-pronged approach: damage limitation and healing. Because you really can’t achieve optimum gut health without both.
If you focus on the healing, but something is damaging your gut constantly, it cannot recover.
Imagine a shower that’s been left on which has flooded your bathroom. There is no point mopping up the water on the floor – you have to turn the shower off!!
A common pattern I am seeing is people with damaged gut health saying they cannot eat fiber-rich food. I’ve seen posts on social media that say ‘kale is toxic’ due to oxalates… or that ‘beans are toxic’ due to phytic acid - these are black-or-white, sensational posts aimed to grab your attention, but fail to recognize the nuance that is the human body and nutrition.
The truth is, if you have dysbiosis (an unhealthy balance of microbes in your gut, e.g. SIBO, or candida overgrowth), you will become bloated, or you may have high oxalates. Your gut bugs BREAK DOWN oxalates and determine how much is absorbed into your bloodstream. So simply blaming the food is not a long-term solution, in my opinion. Sure, avoid the food temporarily if it's making you bloated or unwell - but GET TO THE ROOT and heal your gut SO THAT you can eat these foods again.
So, without further ado, let’s find out how to turn that shower off first and patch up the damage, shall we?
📌 Remove any food culprits: This is trickier than it sounds. Because allergies and intolerances can be subtle and difficult to tell. A problem food will cause inflammation and damage in the gut lining, and therefore lead to a disruption of the gut barrier. The usual culprits are dairy and gluten… but it can be anything…
This may then lead to increased intestinal permeability (leaky gut) and a breakdown in gut health. If you are cutting out foods already but still suffering from symptoms after a few months, it might be helpful to do an elimination diet removing the common allergens whilst keeping a food diary.
Once you have achieved optimal gut health then you can reintroduce them one by one to see what the culprit may be.  Make sure you eliminate foods after consultation with a dietician so you don’t become deficient in essential nutrients.
📌 Reduce toxin load: There are 84,000 chemicals registered for use with the EPA, and most of them have not been shown to be safe in humans – these chemicals are found in our water, air, food, everyday products and may have a direct toxic impact on cells lining the gut, and also impact the friendly gut bacteria which we need to maintain gut health (aka our gut microbiome).
Cleaning products, weed killers, pesticides and preservatives in our food can all negatively impact our gut microbiome and contribute to leaky gut.
So a KEY step in any gut healing protocol should be to reduce your environmental toxin exposure. That’s what this page is all about - so come join me in this wonderful community!
📌 Filter your water: Following on from the same thread above - this is an important step in reducing assailants on your gut. Depending on where you live, the water may be chlorinated.
What is chlorine?
It is a disinfectant we add to kill harmful microbes in our water - which is necessary and great because this protects us from acute sickness. However, preliminary studies have shown that chlorine can negatively impact our gut microbiome.1
In addition, tap water can contain heavy metals and other contaminants like BPA and PFAS which can all affect gut health. So ensuring your drinking water is clean is important.
📌 Avoid unnecessary and inappropriate use of medications that damage the gut: NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatories) like ibuprofen (Motrin) can damage the gut lining, and antibiotics, proton pump inhibitors like Nexium can disturb the friendly bacteria that help to build a healthy gut.
Note I put ‘inappropriate’ – these medications are often necessary and can be life-saving so it is not always possible to avoid them. However, make sure they are used judicially for the right indications. Antibiotics for the common cold caused by a virus is an example! On the flip side, if you have a serious bacterial infection, by all means, take the antibiotics - we can repair the microbiome after :)
📌 Is your food toxic to the friendly gut bugs? – It is not always possible to buy grass-fed and finished organic animal products because they are expensive, however, it is worth looking into how your food is farmed and where it came from.
Conventionally farmed meat often contains high concentrations of pesticides and other pollutants like PCB because they are at the top of the food chain (pesticides increase and accumulate up the food chain) – these can affect our gut microbiome.
Also, animals are often fed and injected with antibiotics so you may be inadvertently ingesting antibiotics when you eat meat. This applies to farmed fish too, with farmed salmon showing high concentrations of antibiotics.
Stick to whole, real foods first. And if you can afford to, buy the Dirty Dozen (heavily sprayed produce) organic
Reduce your consumption of ultra-processed food - preservatives can affect our gut microbiome, as well as artificial ingredients like emulsifiers and artificial sweeteners/colors.
📌 Reduce inflammation – this ties in with the food above – because a lot of inflammation in our body comes from food, unfortunately.
We now know that an imbalanced omega 3:6 ratio can worsen inflammation in the body, for example, and this is found in ultra-processed foods like ready meals, chips, donuts, and so on.
📌 Reduce refined sugar – sugar feeds bad bacteria in the gut and tips the balance of a healthy microbiome. There are many other harmful effects of sugar which I won’t go into here… sugar should really be re-labeled as a toxin in my opinion but who doesn’t love the sweet taste!
Once in a while, I do allow some indulgence and it’s hard to be totally sugar-free but when I can I use alternatives (monk fruit, stevia).
📌 Reduce stress – Let's be real, who isn't stressed? I know I am a work in progress in this area but working on stress reduction has been a game-changer for my health. Stress can actually shift your gut bacteria and lead to leaky gut.Â
So now that we’ve looked at ways to minimize harm on our gut, what’s next?
Well, we need to look at ways in which we can help it heal – stay tuned for my next article on how we can help our gut to heal.Â
Look out for my article on the REPAIR part once you’ve tackled all the DISRUPTERS!
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Originally written August 9th 2020
Sasada T, Hinoi T, Saito Y, Adachi T, Takakura Y, Kawaguchi Y, Sotomaru Y, Sentani K, Oue N, Yasui W, Ohdan H. Chlorinated Water Modulates the Development of Colorectal Tumors with Chromosomal Instability and Gut Microbiota in Apc-Deficient Mice. PLoS One. 2015 Jul 17;10(7):e0132435. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0132435. PMID: 26186212; PMCID: PMC4505894.