Our bodies mini eco-system & how to nourish it

what’s Your microbiome?

Your microbiome is the invisible organ housed in your gut that makes up most of your bodies cells. Only ten percent of the cells that make up your body are human cells, the other ninety perecent are microbes, mostly bacteria and mostly living in your gut. These one hundred trillion individuals are more important for your health and happiness than what you imagine.

The mini ecosystem in your gut is as diverse as the Amazon rain forest and thousands of species with thousands of functions are incredibly dependent on the life and vibrancy of your microbiome. Your gut bacteria digests certain foods, produces certain vitamins & hormones, responds to medicine & infection, and even controls your blood sugar & cholesterol levels. Your gut bacteria is involved in just about every process in your body, and they function almost as a second brain. On this page I’ll cover topics over healing your gut, preventing leaky gut, the diet that’s right for a healthy microbiome, and even the concept of how your gut acts as a second brain. Your gut is the root to where all disease forms and should be nourished throughout your entire life in order to ensure longevity & happiness.

Leaky gut + how to heal it

“All Disease Begins in The gut” - Hippocrates. 

What’s leaky gut? + the problems it causes:

Leaky gut occurs when your bodies small intestine lining weakens and becomes permeable (when small holes in your small intestine lining form). This one-cell thick wall can become permeable by a number of outside factors, including environmental toxins and consuming a nutrient poor diet full of processed foods. Once the lining of your small intestine becomes permeable, it will allow toxins to go move through the walls and enter your blood stream. Once these toxins enter your blood stream they can cause a number of negative effects, such as inflammation and autoimmune disease.

• What’s considered a toxin that may affect your gut lining? Gluten. Zonulin, a protein found in gluten signals the tight walls in the small intestine to open and close after it’s released into the body. Two factors that can trigger the release of zonulin in the small intestine are exposure to bad bacteria (viruses and pathogens), antibiotics, and exposure to gluten such as processed wheat. Once these toxins open the doors to the walls of your small intestine it allows food, harmful bacteria, and harmful toxins to enter your blood stream. Once this happens, it will start depleting your bodies nutrient intake which results in nutrient deficiencies, autoimmune diseases, and inflammatory responses. Repeated exposure to zonulin and harmful prescription drugs will keep the doors wide open for hard-to-manage molecules to enter your blood stream.

• Two kinds of antibiotics: One type of antibiotics are used extensively in raising livestock and large scale agricultural farming. Conventional livestock farmers use antibiotics to make their livestock grow larger at a much faster rate, in order to mass produce their products. When you consume conventional meat or animal products, you’re also consuming the antibiotics that the animal was fed, which results in the harmful toxins from the antibiotics to enter our body. This then results in the depletion of the healthy bacteria in our microbiome. It’s important if you consume meat or other animal products to either purchase it locally, or organic & grass-fed at the grocery store to ensure no antibiotics where used.

• The second kind of antibiotics are in the prescription form, that many of us take in order to treat infections and other pathogens. While prescription antibiotics may be life saving at times, they also kill off all the good bacteria in your gut. If you’re constantly on an antibiotic your gut will suffer from the depletion of its beneficial bacteria, resulting in a whole host of issues. It’s important after taking an antibiotic, that you repopulate & replenish your microbiome with all the bacteria you’ve lost.

What could weaken your gut lining:

• Consuming a low-quality diet over time. This may consist of eating mostly inflammatory foods such as dairy, sugar, and gluten.

• Environmental toxins & prescription drugs.

• Stress, whether it be chronic, emotional or physical, all forms contribute.

• Gut infections such as candida overgrowth.

• Consuming GMO-foods and non-organic foods, full of herbicides.

• Consuming animal products raised with antibiotics.

Signs you may have leaky gut:

1. Digestive issues, such as gas & bloating.

2. Brain fog, lack of mental clarity & difficulty concentrating.

3. Food allergies or intolerance’s.

4. Mood imbalances such as anxiety or depression.

5. Skin issues such as acne, eczema, or rosacea.

6. Diagnosis of an autoimmune disease such as Hashimoto’s thyroid disease, celiac diesease, or psoriasis.

7. Seasonal allergies or asthma.

8. Hormonal imbalances.

Ways to heal leaky gut naturally:

• Hydrate! Hydration is essential when healing your gut.

• Intermittent fasting (head over to my detoxify your life page for more on this concept).

• Remove the toxins from your diet & start consuming clean, anti-inflammatory foods. (check out my nourishing food guide for ideas).

• Embrace prebiotics & help feed the good bacteria in your gut.

• Embrace probiotics too & incorporate fermented foods into your diet to help feed your gut bacteria.

• Detox & cleanse your body with alkaline rich greens.

• Embrace healthy fats & implement coconut oil into your diet daily.

• Try implementing essential oils, whether it be in a diffuser or when cleaning your home.

How to heal & nourish your gut through nutrition

If your gut isn’t happy, you aren’t happy.

Step 1: establish what your gut needs

The right balance of microbes and good gut bacteria can save us from disease. Our modern diet & lifestyle greatly impacts the gut-brain relationship, which means we can design ways to target our microbiome and prevent disease. The biggest most constant change in the depletion of healthy gut bacteria, is the shift in our diets and our overall nutrition.

The types of fats you consume throughout your life can drastically change the types of bacteria that decide to reside in your intestines. By feeding special strains of bacteria with healthy fats, it can not only enhance your memory, but also reduce stress levels & stress inducing hormones. You may have heard of the term “prebiotics,” which are foods that can stimulate the growth of healthy bacteria inside our intestines. I’ll go more in-depth with these foods & which ones to incorporate into your diet later on.

Our health is so dependent on not only nourishing ourselves, but upon feeding the other living micro-organisms within us. The right balance of microbes can keep away disease, and by consuming foods rich in good bacteria we can increase our longevity!

Why are our microbes suffering?

Over the years our diets have been so far removed from whatever is “normal” for humans to eat, that we’ve started turning toward communities in the developing world to learn how to eat again. In order to determine what foods we should eat, we must first learn how we digest our food and secondly how our bodies absorb the nutrients from what we eat:

• Our small intestines are fully adapted for both these tasks. When we eat our small intestine becomes flooded with enzymes to break down our food into it’s proper chemicals; proteins into amino acids, carbs into simple sugars, and fats into fatty acids and glycerols. These molecules are small enough to be absorbed through the small intestine and into our blood stream. Then the remains of our digestive process (mostly indigestible plant parts) or dietary fiber, move to the large intestine. Our large intestine is home to another forgotten organ, that’s the connecting hub between our digestive, immune, and neurological systems. Now you know a simple overview about the process of your digestion, it’s time to move into the benefits of fiber and why it’s something your gut really needs.

What your gut really needs:

Fiber is the nutrient our gut microbes are after, and it’s plants that we must eat to provide our microbes with. In order to increase our fiber intake, we must make more room on our plates for more plants. You can start by reducing your meat intake, which has zero fiber and transition to a primarily plant-based diet to feed your microbes on a cellular level.

• Fiber is often said to have no nutritional value, however this opinion ignores the huge impact that fiber has on the diversity and makeup of the microbial communities in our guts and in turn impacts our overall health & wellness.

• It isn’t the species of bacteria we hold in our bodies that determine our health, but the compounds they produce which we then absorb. When we break down fiber our microbes produce a new set of compounds, called short-chain fatty acids. These molecules provide us with an invaluable set of services.

Benefits of fiber for the gut:

1. They reduce inflammation by calming the immune system, which prevents allergies, autoimmunity, and even stops cancer cells from developing.

2. They feed the cells lining our gut wall, and they keep the cells of our gut lining tightly bound together, preventing bacterial compounds from entering the blood stream where they could affect how much energy we store as fat.

3. Fiber even helps tell our brain that we’ve had enough food, which helps us feel less hungry for longer.

• If fiber doesn’t reach our gut microbes, however, they become less abundant & diverse. By thinking not only about ourselves when we create our meals, but also about our microbes, we can dramatically improve our health and boost our happiness.

Step 2: consume Prebiotics on the daily

Prebiotics sound complex, however they’re simply just the non-digetible parts of fiber-rich foods. One of the benefits of having good bacteria in the gut is that they’re able to use the fiber-rich foods we consume, such as the skin on apples, or other parts of fruits & veggies as fuel. Fiber isn’t digestible on its own and needs our special gut bacteria to metabolize & break it down for us. Eating fiber promotes the growth of new healthy gut bacteria, and may very well be fibers most important aspect in keeping us healthy.

Two characteristics of a prebiotic:

1. They must be non-digetible, meaning they pass through the stomach without being broken down by either gastric acids or enzymes. This would be considered any high fiber foods (fruits & veggies).

2. They must be able to be fermented or metabolized by the intestinal bacteria.

Benefits of incorporating prebiotics:

• Enhances the absorption of minerals in your body, including magnesium, iron, and calcium.

• Lowers the risk factors for cardiovascular disease, by reducing inflammation and lowers inflammation throughout the entire body.

• Promotes a sense of fullness & helps with weight loss.

Foods rich in prebiotics:

• Raw chicory root, dandelion greens, Jerusalem artichoke, garlic, onions, raw leek, raw asparagus, bananas, and sweet potatoes. Any raw prebiotic food can be fermented, in order to be easily eaten!

The second brain you didn’t know you have

The gut-brain connection

• A healthy gut equals a happy life. The number of neurons in our gut is so high that many scientists are considering our gut to be our second brain! Our second brain helps regulate muscles, immune cells and hormones, but it also creates something very important. The nerve cells in our gut actually create eighty-ninety percent of the amount of serotonin in our bodies. In fact our guts brain helps make more serotonin (the ultimate happiness molecule) then the brain in your head does!

• The gut bacteria inside us may control how we think and behave. Through their intimate connection with our immune system, the cells of which are also centered on the large intestine. Our microbes influence our weight, moods, behavior, and our immune health. Allergies, autoimmune disease, mental health conditions, and obesity are all tied to the treatment of our microbial friends.

The link between mental illness + depression & our gut:

• Depression is an inflammatory disease and the connection between depression and the gut isn’t a new concept. Toxic chemicals being manufactured in the gut could affect your mood & brain function. Higher levels of inflammation dramatically increase the risk for developing depression. Depression isn’t just solely a relationship with brain health, instead the relationship between depression & inflammation makes us wonder where the inflammation is coming from in the first place. The simple answer to that is, our diet. One of the biggest factors in causing inflammation is from an increase in our guts permeability, meaning our small intestine wall becomes weakened and is now letting in toxins from our diet & environment into our blood stream. This results in inflammation throughout our entire body, which then causes an increase in developing mental health issues, such as depression.

Decrease inflammation by:

• Consuming a diet rich in healthy anti-inflammatory fats & proteins, including avocados, coconut oil, and nuts & seeds. These foods rich in healthy fat and high in omega three’s will keep your gut lining tight & decrease your risk for developing mental health issues.

Vitamin B12 is essential for proper brain health

• Not only does our gut bacteria influence the environment in our body, but they also contribute to that environment by producing certain chemicals that affect the health of our brain & entire nervous system. They determine the strength and fortitude of your gut wall, and they even produce various vitamins that are essential to good brain health including vitamin B-12.

• Low levels of vitamin B-12 put you at a huge risk factor for dementia & other mental challenges such as depression. It’s crucial to ensure you have adequate levels of B-12 in your body to not only to prevent depression, but also help improve your overall health & vitality.

A healthy gut equals a good nights sleep

• The stress hormone cortisol is uniquely tied to the ebb & flow of hormones throughout the day, which factors into how alert or tired we feel throughout the day. Gut bacteria is what stimulates the production of chemicals such as cortisol. Cortisol levels are naturally supposed to be the lowest at night, beginning to rise in the early morning. When cortisol levels go up in the morning, the gut bacteria inhibit the production of cytokines (which have a circadian cycle dictated by gut bacteria) and shifts the transition between non-rem & rem sleep. However, If this process goes on during the middle of the night, this disruption between gut bacteria will have significant negative effects on how well you sleep and your circadian rhythm. As long as you keep your gut bacteria balanced, you can successfully break poor sleeping patterns & insomnia.

A strong immune system originates in the gut

Our gut is the direct gateway to good health

Our immune system is mostly in our gut

• Your immune system controls inflammation, which is the root cause of most autoimmune diseases. This includes Alzheimer’s, dementia, cancer, depression, & other autoimmune disorders. Your microbiome helps regulate and manage your immune response. So in turn, it plays a large role in the root cause of inflammation in your body.

• The intestinal flora that make up our intestinal walls act as a detoxification system. The gut bugs play a large role in preventing infections and serving as a line of defense against many toxins that make it down into our intestines. Since our gut bacteria neutralize many toxins found in our food, they can be viewed as a second liver. When you decrease the good bacteria in your gut, you also increase the workload in your liver. Since your gut is the biggest immune system organ in your body, it largely influences your immune systems response to disease.

• The bacteria educates & supports your immune system by controlling certain immune cells and preventing autoimmunity. It helps you handle stress through the gut flora’s effects on your endocrine & hormonal system and helps with promoting deeper sleep. It also helps controls your bodies inflammatory pathways, which in turn affect risk for almost all chronic disease.

• Your intestinal flora also help out with digestion & the absorption of nutrients, and creates a physical barrier against possible invaders such as viruses & pathogens. Having an abundance of good gut bacteria plays a large role in preventing brain disorders, mental illness, cancer, asthma, food allergies, metabolic conditions such as diabetes & obesity, and autoimmune disease. This is due to their direct & indirect effect on multiple organs and systems in your body. Ultimately the good bacteria in your gut are in charge of your health, and your gut is where food becomes healing medicine inside your body.

Why does our gut influence our immunity?

• The reason most of your immune system is brought into effect in your gut is because your intestinal wall is essentially the border with the outside world. Aside from your skin, it’s where your body has the largest chance of encountering foreign bacteria. It’s also in constant communication with every other immune system cell in your body. If your body meets a problem in the gut, then it alerts the rest of your immune system to be on guard.

• The immune cells that receive signals from the gut bacteria are the first to respond in your body. In turn, the gut bacteria help keep the immune system in tip top shape, but not in full defense mode all the time. They also help monitor and educate your immune system, which ultimately helps prevent your guts immune system from reacting to foods in a negative way.

The good v. bad bacteria in your gut:

• Pathogenic bacteria that interacts with the immunity in your gut causes the release of inflammatory molecules and stress hormones, which turns on your bodies stress response system. Bad bacteria in your gut can also change the way you perceive pain, often times people who have an unhealthy microbiome may become more sensitive to pain. However, good bacteria will do the opposite and they can minimize the effects of the bad guys in your gut, while also strengthening your immunity. The good bacteria can turn off chronic immune system responses and they keep your cortisol levels in check.

3 forces that work against the good guys in your gut:

1. Exposure to substances that kill or change the bacteria in your gut. This includes anything from environmental toxins or chemicals to certain ingredients in food, such as dairy, sugar, gluten & processed foods.

2. Lack of nutrients that supports healthy and diverse tribes of bacteria.

3. Stress. While it may sound like a cliche factor or you’ve heard it a million times, stress truly affects the balance between the good & bad bacteria in your gut.

3 ways to boost your immunity:

1. Incorporate medicinal mushrooms into your diet, either in supplement form or powdered form and mix into hot tea. (Chaga, Reishi and Cordyceps are a few of my favorites).

2. Eat up all the leafy greens you can! You can also try getting in your greens through an alkaline-rich green powder for smoothies.

3. Incorporate prebiotics & probiotic rich foods daily, and try a turmeric & black pepper supplement for extra immune boosting power!

Keep your microbes thriving

Avoid disrupting your microbiome by implementing these tips:

1. Get to know your local farmers & opt for locally sourced organic produce.

2. Minimize the use of canned, processed, and prepared foods. Cans are often lined with a BPA-laden coating and processed foods are more likely to contain artificial ingredients.

3. Cook from scratch so you know what’s going into your food. When cooking, avoid using Teflon-coated pans (non-stick pans) & cookware, since they contain Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFAO). This has been labeled to be a likely carcinogen & harmful for your gut bacteria.

4. Don’t microwave foods in plastic. This releases nasty chemicals that are absorbed by the food. Instead, microwave your food in glass containers.

5. Avoid storing food in plastic containers or plastic wrap & ditch the plastic water bottles. They’re not only harmful for the planet, but also your health. Instead, opt for a stainless steel or glass water bottle that can last a lifetime!

References:

• Enders, Giulia. Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body’s Most Underrated Organ. Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2014. Print.

• Perlmutter, David. Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth About Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar-Your Brains Silent Killers. (Place of publication not identified), Yellow Kite, 2013. Print.

• Perlmutter, David. Brain Maker. (Place of publication not identified), Yellow Kite, 2015. Print.

• Axe, Josh. Eat Dirt: Why leaky gut may be the root cause of your health problems and five surprising steps to cure it. New York, NY: Harper Wave, 2016. Print.