When you consider all the steps you should take to be healthy, you probably think about diet, exercise, and sleep. You know you should avoid tobacco and excessive alcohol consumption. And while coffee in small doses is OK, skip the sugary beverages and sate your thirst with copious amounts of water.
What probably doesn’t leap first to mind is your gut. And yet, research continues to prove the strong link between gut health and general health. It’s what happens between intake and discharge that’s vitally important to your well-being.
Knowing a little about how the gastrointestinal system functions may give you a different perspective on staying healthy. Here are four ways your gut may be impacting your overall health.
Table of Contents
1. It May Be Giving Free Rein to Free Radicals
Free radicals usually get a bad rap. The fact is that your body needs them for certain functions, such as healing wounds and destroying bacteria. Your liver needs them to detox impurities from your system too.
So, you do need some of these guys doing what they do to keep you healthy. But too many of them have the opposite effect. The damage they do plays a role in developing cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and dementia, among other ailments.
Free radicals are unstable molecules that can form during normal cell activity. That formation is part of the digestive process. Those unstable molecules can damage healthy cells if left unchecked.
Antioxidants fight free radicals, so it’s vital that you keep them in your gut. Apple cider vinegar contains polyphenols, antioxidants that battle those bad molecules. Getting a daily dose of it will help keep them in check.
If you have an aversion to drinking the liquid, there’s another way to reap the benefits. ACV gummies make it easier to send antioxidants right where they need to be. There’s no reason to not send those polyphenols into battle every single day.
2. It May Be Compromising Your Immunity
You might have learned a lot about immunity during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, viruses aren’t the only disease-causing germs your immune system fends off. It also defends against bacteria, parasites, and cancer while protecting your body’s healthy tissues.
There are a lot of moving parts in the immune system. White blood cells, antibodies, bone marrow, and your spleen are just a few. But a remarkable 70-80% of immune cells reside in your gut.
The gut’s microbiome comprises bacteria and fungi, which interact with immune cells. The makeup and variety of your microbiome are critical to building a healthy immune system. What you consume will determine how strong yours is.
Complex carbohydrates contain the fiber and starches your cells can’t digest. Instead, your gut bacteria feed on them which, in turn, leads to reduced inflammatory response to germs.
Complex carbs are those legumes, beans, whole grains, oats, nuts, fruits, and vegetables renowned for their fiber content. If you want to build a strong immune system, you need to get your gut on board. Get a little more roughage in your daily diet.
3. It May Be Affecting Your Mood
As the old children’s song goes, the neck bone’s connected to the head bone. But you might not know that nerves connect the gut to the brain. There is a direct line of two-way communication between the two that needs to be kept open and clear.
If you don’t keep your microbiome in balance, signals between the gut and brain break down. The result can be depression or anxiety, not to mention neurodevelopmental conditions like Tourette syndrome, ADHD, and schizophrenia.
That all-important microbiome produces a couple of key neurotransmitters; serotonin and gamma-aminobutyric acid. You probably recognize serotonin as the “happy hormone,” historically linked to mood among other factors. Quite recently, the major impact of serotonin on depression has been downgraded, although there is still a relationship between the two.
GABA helps regulate emotions and mood, including anxiety and fear. Since these neurotransmitters are produced in the gut, you can see how important your complex carb consumption is. Without the right stuff down there, your brain up there won’t receive the right signals it needs for sound mental health.
4. It May Be Keeping You Up at Night
If you have read anything about good health, you know how vital the quantity and quality of sleep is to it. Poor sleep is a factor in a multitude of serious health issues. They range from heart disease and stroke to diabetes and obesity, and a lot more in between.
Although stress, blue light exposure, and caffeine might be keeping you awake, your gut can be the real disrupter. Because communication between your gut and brain is bidirectional, lack of sleep can affect your microbiome as well. In other words, it works both ways.
Once again, it’s the diversity of gut flora that’s key to getting quality sleep. Fiber, prebiotics, probiotics, and adequate water consumption will produce a healthy microbiome. According to more recent research, so is the right kind of protein.
Whatever you do, don’t forget the value of exercise. Regular exercise can reduce stress and tire you out so you sleep better. But exercise can also improve the production of good microbes as well as the variety of flora produced.
A healthy gut will also keep your GI tract in good shape. That can reduce the need to get up at night to use the bathroom. Good gut, good night.
Get Gut Healthy
Good health is a gift, but not one that requires no attention. Now that you know how your gut can affect your overall health, you’ll need to get to work. Don’t take a gut punch. Give your overall health a fighting chance.
I am a 26 year old young and witty girl, who simply loves to write and be around her friends. I am the one who believes in filling the heart of her readers with love, passion and contentment.
