What are the things that can cause harm to your gut health?
1. Having too restricted a diet is going to impact your gut microbial growth negatively. From what I’ve read, people in western countries, only consume between 12 and 15 types of vegetables and four or five different types of animals. If you look at indigenous people in Africa, who don’t suffer from the chronic diseases seen in the developed world, they eat a far more diverse range of plants and have a much wider range of bacteria in their gut with all the associated benefits.
2. Lack of prebiotic in the diet is another common problems. Most people don’t include high-quality, sour yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, kimchi, or kombucha in their diet. Fifty or sixty years ago, cultured and fermented foods were commonplace. Now it’s become something special rather than routine.
3. Drinking too much alcohol with a detrimental impact on the gut is a common habit. Studies have shown, for example, that when you consume spirits like gin or vodka, you dramatically reduce the population of beneficial bacteria. If you can stick with small quantities of red wine with a high polyphenol content, you can increase the beneficial bacteria content of your gut.
4. Antibiotics are very challenging for the gut flora. Some clients I had would go on antibiotics twice a year for infections that could have been fixed by natural methods. You don’t’ have to automatically jump to ciprofloxacin as soon as someone has a mild sore throat or a little skin rash. Herbs have been used for hundreds, if not thousands, of years for these sorts of reasons. See a naturopath or a functional medicine doctor if you want a second opinion about antibiotic use. Antibiotics are one of the key factors that undermine gut function.
Further readings:
- Why Buy CanXida When I Can Make It Myself?
- 10 Mistakes People Make When Cooking On A Candida Diet Or Cleanse
- Preventing Vitamin and Mineral Loss when Cooking Vegetables
- Vitamin C And Weight Loss: What’s The Connection?
5. Lack of activity can be a detriment to your gut flora. Exercise is very beneficial for your microbiome. I read a study of professional rugby players that demonstrated they had much higher levels of good bacteria compared to less active men of the same weight and age.
6. Smoking can harm the GI tract, particularly if you’re a heavy smoker. Not only are smokers more prone to strokes and heart attacks, they also have higher inca1dence of inflammatory bowel disease. For example, the risk of Crohn’s disease is twice as high in smokers as in non-smokers.
7. Sleep deprivation can damage gut health. When someone has a healthy circadian rhythm, they have a far better balance of microbes and range of beneficial bacteria in their gut. Good sleep patterns are correlated wth good microbiome patterns. Disturbed sleep can interfere with hormonal levels and thereby impact the appetite and immune systems, including the immune system in the gut.
8. Too much stress can be very damaging to the gut. It can also interfere with appetite regulation and lead to snacking on junk food, which in turn changes the microbiome for the worse. People with low-stress lifestyles tend to have much better gut health.
Sources: