A healthy gut means a healthy you. Almost all the diseases start developing out of your gut. Thus, maintaining good gut health is all the more important. But, how do you maintain the same?
This article gives an insight into how the human gut works and also provides what you should be doing in order to maintain a healthy gut.
But, before we move any further, it is important to understand something as important as the gut microbiome.
A Healthy Gut Microbiome Is Crucial
You may already know that your body is full of microbes that help with various body functions. These microbes together with their habitat and functioning are known as the microbiome. And the ones that make your gut as their home, are referred to as the gut microbiome.
As important as it is to know what gut microbiome is, knowing which ones are beneficial and which ones are not is equally important. This article, https://microbeformulas.com/blogs/microbe-formulas/are-gut-microbiome-tests-accurate-or-worth-it/, gives you an insight into how gut microbiome tests work. Knowing the microbe diversity present inside your gut can better help you understand how to maintain a healthy gut.
Let us provide you with some of the tips that no one tells you for maintaining your gut health. Or rather a healthy gut microbiome.
1. Feed Your Gut With More Fiber
Feeding foods that contain more fiber actually helps feed the healthy bacteria in your gut. These bacteria break down the fibers into short-chain fatty acids. These short-chain fatty acids are responsible for maintaining the gut barrier which is responsible for keeping the harmful bacteria away.
2. Avoid Taking In Excessive Sugar & Sweeteners
According to a study carried out in African tribal regions, foods that are low on sugars help improve the diversity of healthy bacteria in your gut. Whereas, the same study also suggests that eating foods that are sugary or full of artificial sweeteners can have the opposite effect. And it is imperative to say how a diverse microbiome is more beneficial for your gut health.
3. Fried & Processed Foods Are Not Favoured By Gut Bacteria
Your gut consists of bacterias that feed off of the greasy and oily foods. But these bacterias do not help provide any nutritional benefit to your body. In fact, if you keep on consuming fried and processed foods, the healthy bacteria may start to die due to starvation. And this would eventually lead to certain disorders including diabetes and obesity.
4. Probiotics & Fermented Foods Are Welcomed In Your Gut
A recent study suggests that preserved foods are helpful in improving gut flora diversity. Fermented foods such as red wine, yogurt, and pickles can help soothe the inflammation in the gut. This is in turn linked to improved microbiota diversity in your gut.
5. Higher Stress Levels May Affect The Diversity In Your Gut
You may think of how stress levels can affect your gut microbiome. As a matter of fact, high-stress levels releases hormones in the brain that potentially inhibits the proper functioning of the immune system. In turn, the immune system starts to attack the good bacteria in your gut. Which is not at all beneficial for your gut health.
6. Foods With High Levels Of Polyphenols Are Good
Polyphenols are known to be beneficial for increasing gut biodiversity. It is important to know that there is still an ongoing study around which species are helpful and which are harmful. But it has already been established that a diversified microbial occupation in your gut is good for overall health.
7. Pet A Dog To Help Develop Your Immune System
Studies reveal that children who are exposed to pets like dogs or cats from a very young age are more immune to allergens and pathogens. This is because immunity is developed to identify the allergens present in dogs and cats as friendly ones and therefore they are not attacked by your immune system.
8. Smoking Is One Of The Leading Causes Of Decreased Gut Biodiversity
Smoking can reduce the healthy bacteria count in your gut. Simply because smoking feeds your body with harmful toxins which can kill these bacteria and decrease the gut biodiversity. Therefore, it is advised to quit smoking if you wish to maintain a healthy gut.
9. Antibiotics Should Be Avoided Unnecessarily
Antibiotics are bacteria assassins. Usually, if these medicines are taken in limited quantities and only as needed, they help get rid of the harmful bacteria. But consuming them in unnecessary quantities can lead to a depletion of the helpful gut microbiome.
10. Staying Hydrated Is One Of The Best Ways To Mobilize The Gut Flora
Just like the nutritions need to be mobilized from your gut, the gut flora also needs to be mobilized. And one of the most important factors that affect the mobility of any substance inside your body is water. So, drinking a lot of water can actually improve the overall health of your gut by mobilizing the necessary flora from one place to another. And also within the body.
In a nutshell, it is the microbiome that resides inside your gut, which is responsible for your gut health. And in order to maintain a healthy gut, you need to maintain the health of your gut microbiome.
Whether you believe it or not, but almost every disease originates from your gut. From life-threatening cancers to mental disorders like Parkinson’s disease, all of them have gut disorders as their early-stage symptoms.
Understanding the microbiome in your gut is, of course, no easy task. But researchers today have been able to distinguish about 10,000 species of microbes that live inside the human gut. Knowing which ones to keep and which ones to discard is still a long way to go.
Nevertheless, by now it has already been established that a diverse microbial flora is beneficial. And maintaining the same is all that you can do for now. With the tips given above, you can’t just maintain the diversity but also, improve the growth of helpful ones over the harmful ones.