Tag Archives: alcohol

Gut Healthy Travel Tips

Let’s look at some steps you can take while traveling, which will help prevent GI distress.

1. Plan ahead: Where are you going on your trip? Are you going to go to Zimbabwe? Are you going to go to Antarctica? Are you going to go to New York City? Depending on where you go, the steps you need to take to avoid getting ill may be different—for example, the colder your destination, the lower the risk of certain parasites. Going to Los Angeles is going to be a different scenario than going to parts of Asia or Africa. Of course, no matter what part of the globe you travel to, you could bump into someone from an area of the world experiencing an outbreak. It pays to be vigilant no matter where you go.

2. Be cautious in busy airports and public transportation. You don’t need to be over the top about hygiene, but you do need to on high alert. It’s no different than being on the lookout for pickpockets when traveling. You need to keep your wits about you. For example, the first thing I do when I get off the airplane is head straight to the bathroom and clean my hands thoroughly. You touch so many surfaces when traveling by plane, and these surfaces have been touched by thousands of other people. If you don’t clean your hands thoroughly and have something to eat or touch your eye, it’s easy to transfer bacteria or parasites. The same is true for airport showers. If I have been on a long haul flight and am really tired, I will have a shower, but I use my own tea tree soap that I’ve brought along. Hand washing is probably one of the most important things to do when you travel. That includes after handling money and your passport as well.

3. Get a letter from a healthcare provider explaining that your supplements are necessary: I’ve heard of many occasions where people have had their supplements confiscated and thrown out by airport security. Having a letter like that can go a long way towards saving your bottles of supplements. Also, plan carefully, so you only take the pills that you need immediately in your carry-on case.

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4. Focus on bringing the items that you need based on your destination: For example, when I go to Australia, I bring essential oils that will help repel the flies. If you’re going to Antarctica or a skiing destination, you’ll need to be prepared to combat sunburn. If loose bowels are a risk, taking probiotics with you may be a good idea. Saccharomyces boulardii is very good for traveler’s diarrhea.

5. Be careful with drinking water: Many people get sick from drinking water when they travel to countries that don’t have reliable water safety systems. In some places, unscrupulous people will sell you contaminated water, claiming that it is fresh and clean.

6. Be careful where you eat: I have eaten in some pretty nice restaurants and still ended up sick. Alternatively, I ate street food on one of my first trips to India, and I didn’t have a problem with it. In my opinion, if you’re traveling, the water and food are the two most likely sources of infection.

7. Take useful natural medications with you: Activated charcoal is good to have on hand because it can soak up toxins. Probiotics and B vitamins can also be helpful. I know some people find magnesium supplements useful when traveling by plane. Others use melatonin for jet lag. Lavender oil, tea tree oil, and peppermint oil are also a good addition to your travel pack.

8. Minimize alcohol intake and maximize your intake of fresh, high-quality water. If you’re putting alcohol into your gut, it’s hard for that GI tract to detoxify. If you eat contaminated food, it’s now an open invitation for serious gut problems.

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Is Cooking With Alcohol Bad For The Gut?

Does cooking with alcohol harm the gut?

There’s no doubt about it; alcohol does have a negative effect on the gut. There can be positives to alcohol as well, but it has a lot to do with the amount you consume.

People who drink large quantities of alcohol daily are going to destroy their health.
What about people who are sensible and have small quantities of alcohol now and then? They aren’t likely going to damage their health.

Research tells us that when you cook alcohol for twenty to thirty minutes, up to 60% of the alcohol will evaporate away. If you cook the food for 1 ½ to 2 hours, only about 5% of the original alcohol remains.

I occasionally will make a lovely beef casserole that includes some red wine. I will use a cup of red wine and cook the dish for four or five hours. By the time the stew is ready to eat, there is less than 2% of the alcohol left. That’s a risk I’m willing to take for a delicious meal.

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I haven’t experienced any adverse effects on my gut health from my very moderate use of alcohol.
I have seen some research that neutral spirits like vodka and gin might be a little less damaging to the gut when compared to non-neutral spirits like brandy and whiskey. If the alcohol is transparent and white, it’s a neutral spirit.

But vodka and gin will still have negative effects on your liver, especially if you’re drinking every day and eating a poor diet. You need to replace the nutrients that are lost through the alcohol detoxification process.

If you want a substitute for wine or brandy, you could always try fruit juice. The sugar is still high, but at least there is no alcohol. I would use fruit juice sparingly due to the fructose content. You don’t want to overload your kidneys, liver, or digestive system with alcohol or sugar.

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8 Things You Shouldn’t Do If You Want A Healthy Gut

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.

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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.

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What Type Of Alcohol Is The Healthiest?

I’ve been asked so many times, “What’s the best alcohol to drink if I want to say healthy?”
I wouldn’t call any type of alcohol “healthy,” but in my experience, vodka and gin have the most minimal effects on the GI tract.

Vodka has been filtered so many times through charcoal to clean out the impurities, and it tends to have the least effect on the small and large bowel – although this isn’t necessarily true for the stomach.

Of course, vodka and gin in excess are going to be hard on the body in general.

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Beer has to be amongst some of the worst types of alcohol for the gut. The same is true for high FODMAP wines. Some of these wines contain loads of sugar. Dessert wines, muscats, and some pinot noirs are very high in sugar.

To keep your intake of alcohol in the “healthy as possible” range, I’d recommend limiting it to one drink for women and two drinks for men at any one sitting. Some people argue that there is no amount of alcohol that is healthy. However, I do know some people who have had very moderate intake for their entire adult life and are in excellent health.

For those people who aren’t able to stop at one or two drinks, they are best avoiding alcohol altogether.

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Alcohol And Your Gut: What You Need To Know

Will alcohol affect your gut health?

Yes. Alcohol will affect your gut in several ways.

If you’ve been struggling with a health problem for some time and you drink alcohol regularly, it’s time to put that drink aside.

If you have been going to different doctors trying to find out what’s wrong with you and still no answers, then giving up alcohol is an important step. This is particularly true if you have histamine issues, allergies, or recurring digestive issues.

I don’t care how much or what kind of alcohol you drink. Whether it’s glass or a bottle or it’s red wine or gin, regular drinking is going to impact your gut health.

Alcohol impacts the four basic groups of bacteria that live in your gut. The bacteria populations are altered and moved around.

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You’ll only truly know to what extent your gut has been affected by alcohol by giving it up for at least six months. That may seem like a crazy thing to do if you drink regularly, but the difference between drinking and not drinking is profound when it comes to gut health.

Some people claim that red wine is better for your gut due to the polyphenol content. And red wine can indeed increase the amount of certain beneficial bacteria. But that benefit is offset by the impact of alcohol on the gut and liver.

Alcohol slows metabolism down. It affects hormonal health and increases the activity of inflammatory pathways.

Denial about the impact of alcohol on your gut won’t help anybody.
I recommend giving up alcohol for a significant amount of time and observing what happens to your digestive health.

A healthy gut microbiome will improve the physical and mental aspects of your health.
In my experience, bowel movements nearly always improve when people give up alcohol. In most cases, health improves across the board when alcohol is eliminated from the diet.

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