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Topics: Health
Britt Jones
Gut health has never been so important, and if you want to improve your health, follow the experts’ advice.
Did you know that gut health has been linked to a range of diseases, from anxiety to sleep problems.
Some say it impacts every organ, and also your brain too, so keeping it in good health seems to be the smart choice.
However, there is so much advice out there, and it’s hard to know what works and what doesn’t as trends come and go.
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Thankfully, Will Bulsiewicz, MD, a board-certified internist and gastroenterologist, Amy Burkhart, MD, RD, an integrative medicine physician and gut health expert in California, and Karl Kwok, MD, a gastroenterologist at Kaiser Permanente in Los Angeles, spoke with Women’s Health about it all.
Here’s nine things they suggested to reset your gut so you can benefit.
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According to Dr Burkhart, you need to be sleeping for around seven to eight hours of sleep every night.
She explained that bad sleep has been linked to issues in the gut.
Dr Bulsiewicz revealed something unusual. Just as we run on a circadian rhythm for sleep and wake times, so do our microbes.
He told the outlet: “They are sensitive to the time of day, just as much as we are.”
So, make sure you’re going to sleep when you start to feel sleepy.
Get up and move, so you’re not letting yourself get sedentary.
Per Dr Burkhart, ‘regular exercise creates positive changes in the gut microbiome'.
According to some, like The Tummy Whisperer, movement can help your bowel movements and your microbiome.
In a 2017 study, it was found that exercising could protect your gut from cancers, like colon cancer.
The authors concluded: “Exercise is able to enrich the microflora diversity; to improve the Bacteroidetes-Firmicutes ratio which could potentially contribute to reducing weight, obesity-associated pathologies, and gastrointestinal disorders.”
It went on to say that the stimulation can produce a ‘reduction in the incidence of obesity and metabolic diseases; and to stimulate bacteria capable of producing substances that protect against gastrointestinal disorders and colon cancer’.
Stress has such a profound effect on the body, so it’s no surprise it can harm your gut too.
According to the NHS, stress can ‘worsen digestive conditions like stomach ulcers and irritable bowel syndrome’, which makes managing and reducing stress a positive step to help with digestion.
Antibiotics can do a lot of harm to your gut, as it goes after the good and bad gut bacteria, and doesn’t care which is which.
"Every time we deploy antibiotics, it increases the proportional risk of the gut microbiome being enriched for drug-resistant genes, so that next time the pathogen comes around, it might be able to pick up some of these selective resistant genes from the gut," Gautam Dantas, professor of laboratory and genomic medicine at Washington University's School of Medicine told the BBC.
According to Dr Burkhart, alcohol is a known gut irritant, and they recommend non-alcoholic alternatives so you can still have fun, but keep your gut healthy.
According to Gut UK, alcohol can even increase your risk of stomach cancer.
It states on its website: “Alcohol can affect the stomach lining, causing inflammation (gastritis), and reducing the ability for the damage to repair. It also affects how the stomach empties and alters the amount of acid that is produced. Alcohol can increase the risk of developing stomach cancer.”
Dr Burkhart went on to say that nutrient deficiencies, like B12, affect microbiome health.
Per J Mitra, vitamin B12 deficiency can cause things like digestive issues such as constipation, diarrhoea, and loss of appetite.
Hydrating can really solve a lot of problems in the body, and one of them, is decreasing the amount of inflammation in your body.
According to Birmingham Gastroenterology, ‘proper hydration is essential for optimal nutrient absorption in the digestive system’. So, it’s important to grab a glass and get it down you.