Gut health

[barefoot]

Twenty years ago I was diagnosed with IBS. It was pretty bad in my 20s - made worse by work stress and undiagnosed/untreated anxiety, depression and PTSD.
It then calmed right down so that I occasionally had the odd blip and rarely took medication.

Earlier this year, I had a real flare up of IBS type symptoms but couldn’t really work out why. The only thing I can think it might be is grief/shock following my mum’s death a few months before these stomach problems started. It’s still not good.

I just had a colonoscopy and got the all clear for anything sinister, so next step is a referral to a gastroenterologist. I also have a referral my GP made to a dietician.

I want to take this as an opportunity to improve my diet, lose some weight and see what I can do to support my gut health going forward.

Gut health seems like such a buzzword lately and I have started doing some research online but I’ve found all the information rather overwhelming. Especially as so much is contradictory.

My therapist is extremely passionate about gut health including taking various supplements to support it. She’s also pretty hardcore about what she does/doesn’t eat, in a way that feels too extreme and impractical for me, especially at this point when I’m just starting to try to get more informed. She is pretty evangelical about things like going dairy- and gluten-free, totally cutting out sugar, only eating organic, taking various supplements...and I find it a bit off-putting, to be honest!

Does anyone have any recommendations for good reads or have solid info or relevant personal experience re having a healthy gut, which could be a good starting point for me?

Or is it really best to just think about being healthy and balanced in terms of general healthy diet, exercise, ideal weight etc?

I can’t seem to see the word for the trees at the moment!

 

[bellbird]

Gut health has absolutely become a buzzword, but it is so important.

Your gut contains your "second brain" in the form of the enteric nervous system, and has a connection to your brain via the vagus nerve.

It also contains approx 70% of your immune system Allergy and the gastrointestinal system

Basically, there are a lot of areas that suffer if you have poor gut health.

Here are some starting places:

Probiotics - important, but buzzword for sure, so these can get hella expensive. The thing is, you need to buy smart. Otherwise they'll just be acting as a placebo.
Things to look out for in capsule form probiotics:
- # of CFUs (colony forming units) - the higher the better.
- a delayed release capsule - otherwise you're basically dumping the little guys into the acid bath that is the stomach. You want to give them the best chance of making it to the gut where they will proliferate (another thing that helps is taking them with food - buffers the effect of stomach acid).
- the strains - research these online specific to your goals.
- there are also plenty of probiotic foods! (Milk/ water kefir, kombucha, sauerkraut, kimchi, etc). These have become a research area of great interest recently; I'll just link one study but if you look you'll find many others (eg. Google search: "pubmed" "[probiotic food]")
Milk kefir: nutritional, microbiological and health benefits. - PubMed - NCBI

Prebiotics - another buzzword, and therefore another thing that can get hella expensive.
- prebiotics feed your gut microbes, helping them to help you. I always take my probiotic with a prebiotic. But you can also take a prebiotic by itself to help your existing bugs.
- there are so many of these, and again these can get pretty pricey.
I take Bob's Red Mill, Potato Starch, Unmodified, 1.5 lbs (680 g) which is very reasonable.
The potential of resistant starch as a prebiotic. - PubMed - NCBI

Fibre
- so important for gut health
- fibre is not broken down (digested) by us, and is instead fermented by our gut microbes to produce things called SCFAs (short chain fatty acids) - super beneficial molecules such as one called butyrate
Allergy and the gastrointestinal system
Butyrate production from dietary fibre and protection against large bowel cancer in a rat model.
(Just a couple of a tonne of publications out there).
- the potato starch I mention above is a type of fibre (soluble, because it will dissolve in water).
- the other type of fibre is insoluble fibre, and this is the conventional "roughage" type fibre that we think of in our diets.

Reducing stress - stress has a big impact on our gut health How Stress Affects Your Digestive System | Health Beat so looking at ways to reduce stress in general will help your gut, too :)

 

[HealingInProcess]

Gut health has absolutely become a buzzword, but it is so important.

Your gut contains your "second brain" in the form of the enteric nervous system, and has a connection to your brain via the vagus nerve.

It also contains approx 70% of your immune system Allergy and the gastrointestinal system

Basically, there are a lot of areas that suffer if you have poor gut health.

Here are some starting places:

Probiotics - important, but buzzword for sure, so these can get hella expensive. The thing is, you need to buy smart. Otherwise they'll just be acting as a placebo.
Things to look out for in capsule form probiotics:
- # of CFUs (colony forming units) - the higher the better.
- a delayed release capsule - otherwise you're basically dumping the little guys into the acid bath that is the stomach. You want to give them the best chance of making it to the gut where they will proliferate (another thing that helps is taking them with food - buffers the effect of stomach acid).
- the strains - research these online specific to your goals.
- there are also plenty of probiotic foods! (Milk/ water kefir, kombucha, sauerkraut, kimchi, etc). These have become a research area of great interest recently; I'll just link one study but if you look you'll find many others (eg. Google search: "pubmed" "[probiotic food]")
Milk kefir: nutritional, microbiological and health benefits. - PubMed - NCBI

Prebiotics - another buzzword, and therefore another thing that can get hella expensive.
- prebiotics feed your gut microbes, helping them to help you. I always take my probiotic with a prebiotic. But you can also take a prebiotic by itself to help your existing bugs.
- there are so many of these, and again these can get pretty pricey.
I take Bob's Red Mill, Potato Starch, Unmodified, 1.5 lbs (680 g) which is very reasonable.
The potential of resistant starch as a prebiotic. - PubMed - NCBI

Fibre
- so important for gut health
- fibre is not broken down (digested) by us, and is instead fermented by our gut microbes to produce things called SCFAs (short chain fatty acids) - super beneficial molecules such as one called butyrate
Allergy and the gastrointestinal system
Butyrate production from dietary fibre and protection against large bowel cancer in a rat model.
(Just a couple of a tonne of publications out there).
- the potato starch I mention above is a type of fibre (soluble, because it will dissolve in water).
- the other type of fibre is insoluble fibre, and this is the conventional "roughage" type fibre that we think of in our diets.

Reducing stress - stress has a big impact on our gut health How Stress Affects Your Digestive System | Health Beat so looking at ways to reduce stress in general will help your gut, too :)

Great info!

 

[mamachick]

Many years ago I had IBS really bad but also had chronic fatigue. I developed yeast in my finger nails and dr put me on anti fungal meds. It was 2 weeks of med then 2 weeks off then 2 more weeks on meds. Not only did my gut clear up, I never felt better in my life. The brain fog lifted. I had great energy. Went and got my bachelor then masters with ease.

I am totally run down again. Bad IBS, among other things. Have had nail yeast too. Drs won't prescribe this, say it is hard on liver.

 

[barefoot]

@bellbird thanks so much for all the info. I will take the time to properly check out the links you have shared. I am already taking a decent probiotic so am hopefully doing something right!
Have you tried kefir? Quite intrigued by that but wonder if it tastes too sour.

@brat17 that’s really interesting. I was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome/M.E. about 25 years ago. And I have long term fungal infection in both my big toes. I always wear nail polish so don’t generally spend any time looking at it but when I took the polish off a few days ago to have my colonoscopy, I noticed how bad they have got. They look awful! Maybe I should get them treated...!

I have bought a gut book - a little light bedtime reading!

 

[Lauren Rose]

Thank you so much for all the posts! I now get to do some solid research. There is always so much to be learning it's hard to pick which one to give attention to. I am very grateful that you have done the work and given the gold. Smile. And I am very sorry you are experiencing so much discomfort. I hope you find the formula that will help your body function at its best.

 

[bellbird]

Have you tried kefir? Quite intrigued by that but wonder if it tastes too sour.

I have :)

Milk kefir quite sour, and may take some getting used to, but you don't necessarily have to drink it. I used to have a little bit of it with some cereal/rolled oats that I'd soaked in boiling water which had then come back down to a cooler temperature (-just remember that you can't heat the kefir up! Same goes for any probiotic food, as you'll kill the good bugs you're wanting).

Actually that's an important point; kefir or kombucha shouldn't have that issue but if you buy sauerkraut or kimchi from a supermarket, make sure it says "raw" on it, meaning these products will be in the refrigerator section.

If you find sauerkraut on a regular supermarket shelf, it will have most likely been pasteurised, meaning there's no point in purchasing it for any probiotic qualities.

My absolute favourite probiotic food is water kefir. This one might be harder to find in supermarkets, but you can actually buy the kefir grains to make it yourself (note: different grains for making milk or water kefir). It's made from a sugar water solution as obviously there is no sugar in regular water for the bugs to ferment (in milk they can ferment the lactose).

We used to make the water kefir and then pour it into a jug with some frozen strawberries, and store it in the fridge.
It makes the most refreshing and slightly fizzy summery drink.


Oh, and definitely should get your fungal infections treated :)