Because of a Western lifestyle, the intestines have a pretty tough time. The average Dutch person eats a lot of fast carbohydrates, think of bread, crackers, pasta, cookies, muesli and meal bars. Most people think that this is good for the intestines because it is fiber. Fiber is indeed good, just fiber from vegetables and fruits with occasional grains like teff, oats, rice, quinoa, buckwheat and millet.
What about whole grain products?
These fibers make your blood sugar rise less quickly, which is positive. However, they can irritate the intestinal wall faster; and especially people who already have bowel problems aggravate their ailment with this. Of course, every person is different and thus every gut. Still, you can take the above as a general orthomolecular advice. In our consultations we also see people improve when they stop eating grains containing gluten.
What else affects our intestines?
Of course, too much of the wrong fiber and too little of the good fiber is only one risk factor for problems in the gut. Alcohol consumption, smoking and medication also have a negative effect on the gut. In addition, at Brain Balance we regularly talk about the influence of toxins. All these factors combined are stressful for the body.
But besides physical stress, psycho-emotional stress also has a strong influence on the condition of your gut. Everyone has experienced that stress can give you a crazy feeling in your stomach. For example, some people have diarrhea when stressed, and still others tend more toward constipation.
Conversely, disturbed gut flora gives mental problems such as brain fog, loss of concentration and mood swings. The nerves between the brain and the gut are called the gut-brain axis. From gut to brain this effect is 80% and from brain to gut it is 20%. So gut quality is very important for the proper functioning of your cognitive abilities and your emotional state.
If this is for a very short time, this is physiology, healthy and therefore no problem at all. The intestine becomes temporarily increased permeable. So this is not damage to the mucosa but the tight junctions (a kind of sliding doors) open up. The purpose of this is that more and faster glucose, water and salt are absorbed from the intestine into the bloodstream. This increases blood pressure, gives power to the muscles to fight or flee and the brain quick energy to come up with an instant solution.
With chronic stress, however, there is a problem, because the sliding doors may be open for a while but if this happens for a longer period of time, then too many bugs from the gut get into the bloodstream as well as bits of undigested food. This is not nice because the immune system then goes to work hard to get this out and this takes a lot of energy.
You may have had antibiotic treatments in your life, sometimes as a child. This can leave you with a huge negative impact on gut flora, a major imbalance. A one-week course of treatment can result in your gut flora being out of balance for a year to a year and a half.
How can you repair your gut?
It is then very important that you repopulate your gut with the right gut bacteria. For this you can use probiotics, these are the good gut bacteria you want to add extra. You also want to give the critters the right food, otherwise they won't stay. Then you'll have expensive poop and they'll leave for the toilet. So you need healthy fiber, think fermented products and lots of fruits and vegetables. In addition, you supplement this with extra nutrition for the intestinal flora, this is the prebiotics.
If your mucus layer is not in order, it is important that you start repairing it first. You can do this by eating organic fruits such as, for example: blackberries, berries, strawberries, raspberries. And bone broth which you let draw so long that the collagen and minerals come out of the bone and remain in the broth after sieving. You can also eat lots of garlic, onion, nuts, seeds and healthy fatty acids.
Certain supplements can also play a good role.
To measure is to know
Are you still struggling with your intestines and/or digestion or would you like to know exactly what is going on inside? Then it is interesting to do a microbiome test, after which our intestinal therapist can tell you all about it. During your consultation, you will receive a detailed explanation and great advice on how to proceed.
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