When you hear the word bacteria you quickly think of disease, but your body is full of bacteria, viruses and fungi. All this together forms your microbiome, and while some bacteria do indeed guarantee disease, others are actually very important for your immune system, heart, weight and even mental health.

Due to a Western lifestyle, our intestines have a pretty hard time. The average Dutch person eats a lot of fast carbohydrates. Think of bread, crackers, pasta and cookies. Most people think that this is good for the intestines because it is fiber. Fiber is indeed good, just the fiber from vegetables and fruits with occasional grains like teff, oats, rice, quinoa, buckwheat and millet.

What about whole grain products?

These fibers cause your blood sugar to 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 Charlotte Labee Supplements, we regularly talk about the influence of toxins. All of these factors combined are stressful for the body. 

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 no problem at all. The bowel 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 to allow more and faster absorption of glucose, water and salt 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 are then open too long, causing too many bacteria from the gut to enter the bloodstream, as well as pieces of undigested food. This is also known as leaky gut. 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 improve your gut microbiome?

So how can you restore the microbiome in your gut? For this, we have listed some tips:

• Vary your diet and nutrient intake: This creates a diverse microbiome, which ensures good gut health. Legumes, beans and fruits, in particular, are high in fiber and can promote the growth of healthy bacteria. 
• Eat fermented foods: Fermented foods such as sauerkraut and kefir all contain healthy bacteria, which can reduce the amount of pathogenic types of bacteria in the gut.
• Eat as little sugar or other artificial sweeteners as possible: There is evidence that artificial sweeteners such as aspartame increase blood sugar levels by stimulating growth of unhealthy bacteria in the gut microbiome.
• Eat prebiotic foods: Prebiotics are fibers that stimulate the growth of healthy bacteria. Prebiotic-rich foods include artichokes, bananas, asparagus, oats and apples.
• Eat whole grains: Whole grains are high in fiber and good carbohydrates such as beta-glucan, which are digested by gut bacteria and beneficial for weight management, diabetes and other conditions.
• Eat foods rich in polyphenols: Polyphenols are plant compounds found in green tea, dark chocolate, olive oil and whole grains. They are broken down by the microbiome to promote healthy bacterial growth.
• Take a pre- and probiotic supplement: Pre- and probiotics are live bacteria that can help restore the gut to a healthy balance. 

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 colon examination, after which our colon therapist can tell you exactly what is going on. During your consultation you will receive a detailed explanation and a nice advice on how to proceed.