What is Gut Health?

When health practitioners and doctors talk about “gut health,” they’re referring to the microbiome (gut environment) of your digestive system.  Your gut should have a good balance of good and bad bacteria. Unfortunately, many people have an imbalance of good and bad bacteria in their gut, which not only affects the digestive system but it also negatively impacts other areas in their body…. including your brain.

Mental Illness and Gut Health

Several research studies have shown that gut health plays a big role in various types of mental illnesses and brain related health problems.  For example, researchers have found a connection between gut health and autism, depression, and even anxiety.

At this point, it’s still a mystery as to why the health of your gut impacts these brain functions.  Researchers haven’t been able to find exactly how the microbes interact with the functions of the brain. But, it’s clear that some type of interaction is occurring, and that it’s possible to impact your brain functions by managing the health of your gut.

Health Implications of this Discovery

The possible health implications are huge now that we know the gut and brain functions are connected. Instead of relying solely on medication, this opens up new possibilities of treating brain problems at the source, in order to help patients overcome associated symptoms.  Additionally, individuals can monitor their own diet and improve their gut health as a preventive approach for their mental health.

Tips for Improving Your Gut Health

If you want to improve your gut health, then there are several lifestyle and dietary factors that you need to consider.  This process typically involves two steps: nourishing your microbiome and reducing things that disrupt the delicate balance within your microbiome.

To nourish your gut, you need to make sure that you are getting plenty of probiotic rich foods in your diet. Examples of these foods include things such as unpasteurized yogurt, kefir, and fermented foods. Other helpful foods include onions, bananas, and tomatoes that are high in prebiotic fiber, which help feed the good bacteria in your gut as well.

If you have a difficult time getting enough probiotics in your diet, you should consider using a high quality probiotic supplement.  Probiotic supplements will help you re-populate the good bacteria in your gut.  This can be especially helpful if you’ve recently taken antibiotics which severely disrupts your gut flora balance. Antibiotics can wipe out all of good and bad bacteria in your gut.

Additionally, it’s important to stay away from junk food, and other refined, processed foods since it’s very high in sugar.  Bad bacteria thrives on sugar, which makes it very difficult for you to maintain optimal gut bacteria balance.

You should also keep in mind that harsh chemicals found in pesticides and genetically modified foods (GMO) have been shown to negatively impact your gut health.  If you can switch over to using natural pesticides that aren’t harmful to your health and choose organic foods over GMO foods as much as possible, it will make a big difference in helping optimize your gut health as well.

Fix Your Gut, Fix Your Mental Health

It might sound a little far fetched to have to change your diet in order to promote a healthy brain, but science proves that it’s worth the effort!  By improving the microbe balance within your gut you’ll be able to improve your digestive function, and in turn help optimize your brain health.