Ask Sofia: Why Is It Important to Have a Healthy Gut?
That “gut” feeling is more than just intuition – the health of your body often starts and ends there.
“Your gut health influences a lot more than just digestion, it affects your entire body. Believe it or not, a healthy gut contains a diverse and balanced ecosystem of more than 100 trillion microorganisms where bacterial cells outnumber human cells 10 to 1,” said Allie Nowak, physician assistant at Clinic Sofia who is currently completing a program in functional medicine.
The gut includes the entire gastrointestinal track from mouth to anus. Serving three primary functions – metabolic, structural and protective – a properly functioning gut helps the body break down, synthetize and absorb vitamins, minerals and other dietary compounds. It is a barrier that is designed to let certain things like nutrients in and keep other things like toxins, large food molecules and foreign bodies out. In fact, the gut contains 70 to 80 percent of the body’s immune cells. When you have an immune response in your gut, it not only contributes to digestive distress, it also contributes to a wide range of issues including obesity, diabetes, autoimmune disease, depression and skin disorders, among others.
To maintain a healthy gut, Nowak’s top recommendation is to eat whole food, avoiding highly refined carbs, sugar and processed food. Additional dietary considerations include eating more fermentable fibers (a variety of fruits and vegetables, avocados and starchy plants such as sweet potatoes) and avoiding industrial seed oils (vegetable, soybean, canola, corn, safflower, cottonseed, sunflower, peanut and sesame). Stress management is a must. And finally, limit the use of antibiotics, NSAIDs (under brand names such as Advil, Aleve and Motrin) or acid-suppressing medications such as Prilosec, Prevacid, Nexium, Pepcid and Zantac.
“Anyone with gastrointestinal symptoms including constipation, bloating, nausea, diarrhea or acid reflux should pay greater attention to gut health and talk with someone who can help them make some healthy lifestyle changes and rule out an underlying cause,” Nowak added. “However, about half of the people with gut dysfunction have symptoms outside of the intestine, including fatigue, skin rashes, brain fog, joint pain, memory loss and mood disturbances. This is where functional medicine comes in because we aim to address the root cause of disease.”
