Ever wondered why you feel sluggish from a long day? Or feel sick to the stomach when you ate something bad or overindulged on your favorite food? Could it be that your gut is showing signs of stress and discomfort due to certain habits that you may encounter and didn’t even know about it?

In our previous article, we talked about the six types of food that our gut needs to be healthy. Since our gut contains trillions of microbiomes, both good and bad, these microbiomes play an important role in our overall health. A healthy microbiome improves our gut health, heart health, brain health, controls our weight and regulates our blood sugar. With the good bacteria in our gut, the bacteria benefit us with a good digestive system and destroys the harmful bacteria. But certain lifestyles and diet choices can actually increase the bad bacteria and lower the good bacteria and overall health.

 

 

 

Here are five surprisingly lifestyle choices that are hurting your gut:

Not Eating a Wide Range of Foods

Our gut plays an important role in our overall health. When we eat good whole foods, our gut is happier; we have more energy to complete any task that is thrown at us and we are getting nutrients for our gut flora. However, during the past couple of decades, we have been leaning more into processed foods due to the economic pressures of increased food productions. FOA stated that “75 percent of the world’s food is generated from only 12 plants and five animal species” and that is very bad to our gut flora.

Here at Injury Medical & Chiropractic Clinic, we inform our patients about the importance of eating nutritious, whole foods to promote not only a healthy gut but a healthy mind. When the body gets introduced to a wide variety of whole foods (with a high fiber content), our gut starts to repair the damage of processed food that we may have consumed internally.

 

Inadequate Prebiotic Consumption

Prebiotics are the fibers that don’t need to be digested and can pass through our gut. That may seem like a waste however, prebiotics encourages friendly bacteria to grow in our gut. Any high-fiber fruits like apples can actually help to grow helpful microbes like Bifidobacteria.

However, when you disregard prebiotics to your diet, you are harming your digestive health. Without prebiotics, our digestive system slows down the development and diversity for our gut flora. So in order to have a healthy microbiome development, you need to incorporate foods filled with both digestible and indigestible fibers to your diet. Some foods included in this category are oats, nuts, onions, garlic, leeks, asparagus, bananas, pears, chickpeas, and beans.

Sticking to a high fiber diet maybe challenging however, there is the option of taking prebiotic supplements. If you have a food allergen or food sensitivity to any high enriched fiber foods, taking prebiotic supplements can actually help grow Bifidobacterium and Faecalibacterium in your gut and be beneficial to your health without the discomfort.

 

Excessive Alcohol Consumption

Every adult enjoys alcohol once in a while. Yes, it’s one of those beverages that help you relax a bit after a long day, however, too much of it can lead to alcohol abuse and addiction. So, did you know that consuming that much alcohol is bad for your heart, liver, and brain; thus hurting your gut health and giving you dysbiosis?

One study stated, that the alcoholics with dysbiosis had a lower median abundance of Bacteroidetes and a high abundance of Proteobacteria. The ones that weren’t alcoholics were not affected by the study.

However; there is some good news on limiting yourself to alcoholism and that it can be beneficial to your gut bacteria. If you moderately consumed red wine responsibly, the polyphenols in the wine can help benefit your gut flora. So, enjoy a glass of wine once in a while as a small treat that should not be taken for granted.

Inadequate Sleep

In one of the previous articles, we talked about how to achieve a good night sleep through herbs. When we get little to no sleep through our hectic lives, it affects us through various health problems, including heart disease and obesity. In a 2016 study, researchers discovered the effect of short-term sleep deprivation on the gut microbiota after two days.

When our body doesn’t receive the recommended 8 hours of sleep, our gut takes a huge toll as we feel sluggish and exhausted. So, to make sure that our gut microbiome will be taken care of, we recommended to turn off your electronical devices at least 30 minutes before you get ready to settle down for the night. Turn off all the lights, and don’t drink any liquids at least two hours before bed, close your eyes and take a deep breath in a meditative state, and relax as you drift off into slumber town.

 

 

Inadequate Exercise

Through our fast-paced lifestyle and stressful jobs, it’s hard to find time to exercise. But when we actually do find time to exercise, not only do our minds feel good; but our body and gut feel good as well. However, things always come up when we are in an exercise routine and we have to skip exercising altogether. It happens to all of us and it’s hard to pick up where we left off when we tried to exercise.

When we don’t exercise at least a couple of times out of the week, our bodies take a huge toll on us as we gained weight, our stress is way too high, and we have a higher chance of getting a chronic disease. When this happens our gut flora is a huge disadvantage. Here at the clinic, we strive to inform our patients about the importance of exercising and that it not only changes their lives but also changes their mood entirely.

However, don’t just go into a hard exercise routine where you will injure yourself. Start off with a low-intensity workout then build it up as you go because your gut flora will thank you for it.

As a final say, we here at Injury Medical want to keep you informed on nutrition and ways to help you improve your ailments with these 5 surprises. But to also educate you on what may be hurting your gut. With these surprises and slight changes to your daily life, your gut will be thanking you for the long haul.

 

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NCBI Resources

According to evidence from a 2016 research study, the gut’s immune system is fundamental towards preventing a variety of diseases and it may often contribute to metabolic disorders. However, it might also help provide a treatment goal when observing systemic inflammation in insulin resistance. Moreover, modified gut immunity has been linked with changes to the gut microbiota, intestinal barrier function, gut-residing immune cells, and resistance to antigens which enter the gastrointestinal, or GI, system. Although this has been previously believed to raise the danger of esophageal ailments including, pathogenic infections and chronic inflammation, which may ultimately lead to chronic health issues.