J.10/ Gut Health
Bloating, IBS symptoms, food sensitivity, weight gain, reflux and stomach pain can all be a thing of the past when your gut is balanced. Inflammation, allergies, toxins, poor digestion can all be causations for poor gut health.
Gut Health can be affected by some medications, stress, diet, toxins, exercise and more. Your gut is a very complex system within your body and does so much for you. Some people experience bloating, pain, diarrhoea, constipation, trouble digesting foods, sensitivities to certain foods and trouble loosing weight. These symptoms can all be managed by optimising your gut health.
Simply using lifestyle and diet changes we can improve your gut health. Reducing your stress levels does wonders not only for your mind also your digestive system, as your body then can concentrate on digesting foods. Exercise is a fantastic tool to help diversify our gut flora, keeping active most days especially outdoors will boost your gut health. Simple changes to your diet such as, decreasing caffeine and alcohol will ensure your gut stays happy. Eating a range of fruits and vegetables, wholegrains, good quality protein and good fats will help to feed your gut flora which in turn will help optimise your gut. Excess sugar can cause inflammation so it’s best to steer clear of processed sugars during this time. For those of you who follow these diet and lifestyle routines already and are still finding you’re having some gut issues, it is best to seek professional advice as further testing may be needed to find out what is the source of the problem.
There are also many supplements and herbal medicines that can help improve your gut health. I like to start clients with a gut healing powder, as this helps to manage gut inflammation, allow the body to heal and aids digestion. Depending on exact symptoms, we can also use a probiotic, specific nutrients and medicinal herbs.
As with all Naturopathic treatment it really comes down to the individual and what they’re specific needs are. As a Naturopath we treat the patient as a whole, rather than focusing on one symptom we see the whole picture and how it all can be related to each other. I do find most things come back to the gut and are related all together, the gut processes all our food, nutrients, contains it’s own flora, helps our immune system and processes toxins.
