Why is my gut unhealthy and how do I fix it now?

When we say “gut health”, we mean the health of our gut microbiome which is the bacterial communities in our large intestine and the environment they live in, or we mean our gut microbiota which is specifically the bacterial communities.

Gut microbiota (bacterial community) is greatly determined by our diet, our genes, and our environment. As adults, our microbiota is fairly stable but certain factors can cause dysbiosis, or a disruption, that can affect our health. When our body is under stress from physical or mental illness our gut becomes more sensitive because it is strongly connected to our brains and immune system. This means we may start experiencing digestive symptoms and that our gut can be disrupted more easily.

Another factor is antibiotics. Although antibiotics are necessary in many medical circumstances, and sometimes life saving, they can also lead to dysbiosis in our gut leading to problems like inflammation, infection, digestive symptoms, or disease. Either way, our genes play a big role here. If we are born with genes that make us susceptible to certain diseases, illness, or conditions, dysbiosis can further increase our susceptibility and act as a trigger.

It is not often possible to avoid illness, physical or mental, we can’t change our genetic make-up, and sometimes antibiotics are necessary, so how do we protect our gut health or potentially build it back up? Regardless of how stable or disrupted our microbiota is, it is still possible to change it for the better.

You’ve probably heard the terms fibre, probiotic, and prebiotic before. All three of these food components are essential in improving and maintaining gut health. For fibre, it’s important to get a variety of plant foods in your diet daily. This of course includes fruits and vegetables, but it also includes whole grains and their products, beans, lentils, nuts, seeds, and soy.

For probiotics in your diet, think fermented. Foods that are fermented during their production contain probiotics, but it’s important to know which ones still contain active probiotics after production. Fermented dairy products like yoghurt and kefir, are great products to start with. Other products like sauerkraut, pickles, olives, kombucha, kimchi, natto, and tempeh should be unpasteurized, made without vinegar, and found in the refrigerated section of your grocery store.

Prebiotics fit under the umbrella of fibre so including them in your diet relies on the same principle: include a large variety of plant foods every day. Some specific foods to focus on are oats, bananas, apples, onions, garlic, potatoes (any variety), cocoa, asparagus, and honey. There are many others but these ones are more common to Canada.

Two other important dietary factors to focus on are consistency and sustainability. If you completely overhaul your diet overnight, you are going to find it difficult to maintain the changes. It’s important to focus on small changes that are achievable in the short term but that can be maintained for the long term, as in forever. Making changes to improve your digestive health needs to be long term as your digestive tract, and it’s inhabitants, takes time to improve. And, if you want better health for the rest of your life you want those changes to stick.

The other piece of this puzzle is consistency. Although, your diet including what and how you eat is never going to be perfect, and it shouldn’t be, it's important to maintain some consistency. This means eating regularly everyday by cueing into your own hunger and fullness (I have a previous blog post on this topic). Consistency also refers to the amount of fibre you eat throughout the day and day to day. A high fibre diet is better (40ishg/day) but if you only eat 12g of fibre daily right now, a slow increase is NECESSARY.

If you are looking to improve your digestive health, increase your fibre intake, or have a lot of questions on the topic, I provide free 15 minute discovery calls. During these calls we can discuss what your goal for seeing a dietitian is and how the process of nutrition counselling would work for you. You can book your free discovery call with me today on the ‘Book Now’ page and we can make a difference in your digestive health.