Signs Your Gut Is Unhealthy

In functional medicine, we believe that every system in the body is connected. Your digestive and hormonal systems, for example aren't independent of one another. At the center of it all is a properly functioning digestive system.

When your gut is unhealthy, it can cause more than just stomach pain, gas bloating or diarrhea. Because 60-80% of our immune system is located in our gut, gut imbalances have been linked to hormonal imbalances, autoimmune diseases, diabetes, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, anxiety, depression, headaches, anemia, neuropathy, eczema, rosacea, and other chronic health problems.

Healing the gut is the first step regardless of any diagnosis. Restoring the body's balance.

Signs of an unhealthy gut:

Digestive issues like bloating, gas, diarrhea

Food allergies or sensitivities

Anemia

Headache

Neuropathy

Anxiety

Depression

Mood swings, irritability

Skin problems like eczema, rosacea

Diabetes

Autoimmune disease

Frequent infections

Poor memory and concentration, ADD or ADHD

The key to a healthy gut?

Remove the bad

Replace the good

Restore beneficial bacteria to reestablish a healthy balance of good bacteria is critical.

Repair by providing the nutrients necessary to help gut repair.

No matter what your health issue is, your approach should always begin in the gut. A healthy gut is the key to reversal of chronic and inflammatory illnesses and can be done in a short amount of time.

Join my Dis Ease Begins In The Gut monthly group

My reason for this group is to provide some knowledge and some understanding of how our gut works. And also to shed some light on what we can do to have good gut health. I've always been fascinated by the body and it's systems.

Discussions in the upcoming months:

The microbiome it is one of the most fascinating health topics for me to share and for you to learn about, in part because it's hard to grasp its vastness and importance.

This intelligent bacterial ecosystem in your gut makes up the majority of your immune system, and your body actually contains 10 times more bacterial cells than human cells! You are, in truth, actually more bacteria than human, a sort of vehicle or host for the microbiome.

The Microbiome Connection

What sounds like science fiction is actually fact! These trillions of microbes and their colonies are the manufacturers and managers of how you look, feel and think. Researchers are quickly learning how much it regulates just about every system of your body.

Conditions such as leaky gut syndrome and small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) can do a number on your microbiome. As the age-old Hippocratic saying goes, "All disease begins in the gut"; when your microbiome is weakened or damaged, it can "switch on" a number of potential disease processes throughout the body.

It's important to note that you don't have to be experiencing gastrointestinal symptoms to have poor microbiome health. We are just beginning to understand the microbiome, here are some of the surprising ways an unhealthy microbiome can wreck your health:

1. Autoimmune conditions

The last century has seen a rapid rise of autoimmune diseases. As of now, there are around 100 recognized autoimmune conditions and about 40 other diseases that have an autoimmune component. Because 80% of your immune system resides in your gut, it is no surprise that a damaged microbiome and leaky gut syndrome is a precondition for autoimmunity.

2. Mental health disorders

Your gut and brain are inextricably through the communication lines that are referred to as the gut-brain axis. In the medical literature, your gut is actually referred to as "the second brain." An unhealthy microbiome has been linked to mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression.

3. Poor immune health

Should be no surprise here, but if you find yourself sick often, you'll want to know your microbiome health. Chronically low immune system health can be largely due to weak a microbiome health; an overgrowth of opportunistic bacteria, yeast or fungus; or a parasite.

4. Heart disease

A possible correlation between the microbiome and cardiovascular disease was recently found. Certain bacteria produce higher levels of TMAO (trimethylamine-N-oxide) which is linked to a higher risk of heart attack and stroke. It still unclear which microorganism produces more TMAO, but researchers are hoping that, in the future, manipulation of microbiome species can help in the prevention and treatment of heart disease.

5. Type II diabetes

This chronic degenerative disease recently been linked to microbiome disturbances. One study found that transplanting the microbiome of diabetic mice into healthy mice made them diabetic as well!

6. Skin conditions

Skin problems like acne, psoriasis, eczema and dermatitis all have a microbiome and inflammatory-autoimmune component to them. For many, the missing link to healing their skin issues is healing their microbiome.

7. Weight gain and obesity

An imbalance of bacteria in the microbiome has been shown to cause weight loss resistance and obesity. Studies in mice found that overweight mice had a higher amount of the Firmicutes bacteria, while thin mice had a higher proportion of Bacteroidetes. In the human cases, the beneficial bacteria called Lactobacillus rhamnosus was found to be helpful for weight loss in women.The microbiome factor in weight gain cases is a key component for many to lose weight their body has been holding on to for years.

8. Acid reflux

Millions of people suffer from acid reflux, or the more serious GERD. These problems are correlated with a microbiome dysfunction called SIBO, or small intestinal bacterial overgrowth.

9. Cancer

A fascinating study out of the University of North Carolina suggests that damage and inflammation of the gut severely decreased the variety of bacterial species in the microbiome. This loss of microbiome diversity allowed a pathogenic bacterial overgrowth of E. coli. Eighty percent of mice with E. coli infection developed colorectal cancer.

10. Constipation or diarrhea

This is obvious, but digestive problems are so common, it's important to mention. One study found that there was significantly lower amounts of the bacteria Prevotella and increased levels of Firmicutes in constipated patients. Interestingly, the conventional probiotics that people take, Lactobacillus and Bifidobacteria, were not decreased in the microbiomes of the constipated patients.

11. Asthma and chronic sinus infections

Dysbiosis of microbiome bacteria and an overgrowth of Corynebacterium tuberculostearicum, was shown to be a frequent underlying culprit for asthma and chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS). Welcome To The Age Of The Microbiome Some have predicted that this year will be the year of the microbiome. Over the coming years, as we continue to learn more about the microbiome, I suspect this might become the decade of the microbiome.

Definitions of some terms used:

Micobiome -internal complex ecosystem of bacteria located within our bodies that lives in our digestive system. We depend on a vast army of microbes to stay alive: a microbiome that protects us against germs, breaks down food to release energy, and produces vitamins. Our individual microbiomes are sometimes called our “genetic footprints” since they help determine our unique DNA, hereditary factors, predisposition to diseases, body type or body “set point weight,” and much more.

Dysbiosis - is a term for a microbial imbalance that most often affects a person’s digestive tract. That being said, dysbiosis can also affect the skin, eyes, lungs, ears, nose, sinuses, nails, and vagina. Dysbiosis is also sometimes called dysbacteriosis or bacterial dysbiosis. That is because the gastrointestinal tract (GI tract) contains both “good” and “bad” bacteria to form the gut flora—also called the gut microbe.But, other tiny organisms also reside in the gastrointestinal tract, including yeast, fungus, viruses, and parasites.

Inflammation - It is the body’s natural defense against damaged cells, viruses, bacteria, etc. It aims to remove these harmful or foreign invaders and heal itself. There are two different types of inflammation. One type is acute inflammation; The other is chronic. While acute inflammation starts quickly and generally disappears in a few days, chronic inflammation can last for months or years as a result of failure to eliminate the cause and minor, repeated exposure to the agent. A poor diet, stress, minor food allergies, a sedentary lifestyle and more can contribute to chronic inflammation.

Leaky Gut/Leaky Gut Syndrome - The term Leaky Gut Syndrome is used to describe the condition of “Hyperpermeable Intestines,” a fancy medical term that means the intestinal lining has became more porous, with more holes developing that are larger in size and the screening out process is no longer functioning properly.

Autoimmune Disease - A disease in which the body's immune system attacks healthy cells. At the core of the immune system is the ability to tell the difference between self and nonself: what's you and what's foreign. A flaw can make the body unable to tell the difference between self and nonself. When this happens, the body makes autoantibodies that attack normal cells by mistake. At the same time, special cells called regulatory T cells fail to do their job of keeping the immune system in line. The result is a misguided attack on your own body. This causes the damage we know as autoimmune disease. The body parts that are affected depend on the type of autoimmune disease. There are at least 80 types of autoimmune diseases.