When I was a little girl.......
Yep, that’s me! I was probably around 6 and damn was I cute, although I didn’t really know it at the time.
When I was a little girl, I suffered from chronic tummy aches, more often than I spoke of. This continued for many years. The culprit was a cocktail of dairy, gluten as well as anxiety. We now know that this is a triple threat when it comes to digestive disorders and chronic illness. Let me break it down.
When we are born we actually inherit essential bacteria from our mother while passing through the birth canal. This bacteria would go on to be the foundation of our gut microbiome. With that being said, if our mother’s gut microbiota or microbes are imbalanced, this would generally be the state of our microbial status in early development. This can predict the state of our digestion as well as potential illness. So, with that being said, if our mother consumes process sugar and foods as well as alcohol and other products that disrupt the homeostasis of our gut, we, as infants, can have digestive issues, colic, sleep issues and more. So it’s safe to say that the more mindful a pregnant mom is of her nutrition and lifestyle, the better chance a child will be born with a more balanced microbiota.
Let me break it down even more.
Why is your gut the team captain when it comes to your health? First, our gut is inhabited by trillions of microbes. Many fight off harmful pathogens while others promote illness. When our gut microbiota is balanced, our body has the ability to heal itself. When our gut is in a state of what is called dysbiosis or microbial imbalance, our gut lining is affected and becomes permeable. When our gut lining becomes permeable or what we call “leaky gut”, undigested food particles or endotoxins leak into our blood stream. This causes our immune system to go into overdrive as well as causing chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation is the cause of all disease. Disease may not happen overnight but when it does, it can come on full force like cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, arthritis and even alzheimer’s. I think by now you are getting the picture!!
The gut is the epicenter of communication with our brain, our liver, our heart, our thyroid and more. For example, over 70% of neurotransmitters are produced in our gut so if our gut is imbalanced we can experience things like anxiety and depression. 80% of our immune system is around our colon so if our gut is imbalanced we are way more susceptible to viruses and infections. Our gut also supports detoxification of harmful toxins. If our gut is imbalanced, our liver takes on more toxins and becomes taxed. This leads to hormonal imbalances and even non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
Show Your Gut Some Love
Taking into consideration bio-individuality including someone’s history and symptoms, we always look at plant diversity to balance our gut microbes and create homeostasis within our microbiome. When I talk about plant diversity I’m talking about fruits, veggies, nuts, seeds, legumes and whole, unprocessed, gluten free grains. Each plant in the plant kingdom has it’s own unique microbial makeup and the more variety of plants we consume the more we replenish or add essential bacteria to our gut microbiome and begin to heal our gut lining. This reduces chronic inflammation in the body which can result in the reversal of disease. YES!! WE CAN HEAL!!
As you can see, I am a very passionate nutritionist and obsessed with gut health for many reasons. Although this is just the tip of the iceberg, it is so important for myself as well as other practitioners to educate on gut health. Regular intake of processed sugar, dairy, wheat and other key players cause leaky gut, poor digestion, constipation, thyroid disease, diabetes and more. Keep your eye out for more blogs on this topic. Science is evolving daily on the gut microbiome and how it is at the core of getting to the root cause of disease and healing.
Cheers to a healthy & happy New Year!!
Jennifer
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