Gut Health Effects Total Body Health

As kids we didn’t think much about gut health, but it was common to hear or say things like; “I’ll punch you in the gut” or “my gut’s killing me” probably thinking that gut meant the stomach, at least we would hold the stomach as it really meant that.

Although the word gut sounds like a slang word, it actually isn’t a slang but is another word for the intestines, or intestinal tract. While the entire digestive system starts at the mouth and ends at the anus, the intestinal tract starts right below the stomach with the upper small intestine and goes to the large intestine also known as the colon.

Today’s scientists are telling us what Hippocrates said over 2000 years ago; what happens in our intestines has major consequences to our overall health. That means our gut health is directly related to our overall health.

Perhaps the most important variable that determines your gut health is the micro flora or gut flora. This is the bacteria that resides in the gut and it comes in good and beneficial bacteria and in bad and dangerous bacteria as well.

The types of bacteria in our gut is diverse and numbers in the hundreds of trillions. Numbers that are too high for our brain to even comprehend, but that’s not important, what is important to understand is that we need to keep the good ones more heavily populated than the bad ones or else we get any number of digestive disorders and disease.

What scientists are learning more and more about is how probiotics and prebiotics can affect our gut health. Probiotics are normally considered to be live bacteria of the good kind that we can ingest by eating a fermented food such as yogurt. While doing this may possibly add some numbers to the good bacteria already in our gut, it’s important to understand that all this good bacteria is not self-supporting and can only do so much on it’s own.

Top get the benefits of the good bacteria we need to feed it with prebiotic substances so that it can grow, and multiply, therefore benefiting our gut health.

 How do prebiotics make probiotics work?

Most of the good bacteria is living in our large intestine. This is where many digestive disorders can manifest due to a poor  balance of micro flora. If too many dangerous bacteria forms there, it can cause many disorders and disease such as constipation, diverticulosis, IBS, and colon cancer.

What prebiotic fibers do is ferment upon entering the colon and this fermentation is what supplies the good bacteria with the proper nutrients they need to grow.

Low fiber diets are the main cause of many problems

The lack of fiber in the colon is what usually causes many of these intestinal disorders and disease. There was a western physician in the 1950′s that went to Africa to study populations that didn’t have these diseases we have so many of in the west. He studied stool samples of both western people and African tribesmen and noted that the typical western person produced a stool of about 200 grams while the African ‘s was over 600 grams.

The typical rural African eaters a diet consisting of whole, unrefined grains, nuts and seeds. The typical westerner eat a high processed food diet that is voice of this type of dietary fiber, explaining why we in modern western society have so many people suffering from irritable bowel syndrome, constipation, diverticulosis, bowel disorders, chronic fatigue syndrome and many types of cancer.

Could fiber be the solution to most of our digestive problems?

Yes. Many researchers know this. Our society as a whole refuses to get away from the poor and low-fiber diet because it’s so integrated into our lifestyle and society in general. Adding to the problems, most of our western doctors prescribe pharmaceutical drugs to treat our symptoms never considering any natural cure, it’s just the way they are trained.

More people these days are opening their eyes and realizing some of these facts about how nutrition plays such a vital role in gut health, and as Hippocrates said, all disease begins in the gut.

A low fiber diet has been linked to many of the digestive diseases we get and remember what nutritionist have been telling us since we were kids – eat plenty of fruits and vegetables”. That’s were we can get much of our needed fiber. Also, doctors tell us that – 85% of all illnesses can be cured with proper diet, rest and exercise.

 A good way to get good gut health started…

Personally, I started avoiding a few foods I knew were bad, starting with white foods which are of the high processed variety: bread, pasta, rice. Eating whole grain pasta, brown rice and whole grain breads.

I stepped it up a notch and added a prebiotic supplement called Kiwi-Klenz. This is the highest quality digestive supplement we found anywhere.

It’s made from kiwifruit, which if you aren’t aware, is the most nutrient-dense fruit available and has a list of health benefits as ling as your arm.

 

 

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