Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, is quoted saying “All disease begins in the gut.” The wisdom in his words said over 200 years ago has been proven by many doctors and health researchers. Although not all, many chronic metabolic diseases start in the gut. The gut, therefore, needs to be taken care of to ensure that one does not fall victim to illnesses.
Importance of Gut Health
The digestive track plays an important and difficult function in the body. Keeping it healthy improves one’s resistance to diseases. Guts also have mood and brain functions as 2/3 of one’s brain chemical are produced here. The health of your gut has a direct influence on your concentration and moods. One of the principal roles of the gut is to break down the food we eat and to convert it into forms that can be absorbed into the blood stream. Healthy guts will facilitate this process leading to better food absorption, reduced constipation, reflux and bloating. The guts further help to get rid of toxins ingested in food with poop being the most preferred method of doing this. A healthy digestive system will enable the body to detoxify better helping reduce the risk of diseases such as diabetes, cancer, hypertension, etc. that are accelerated by body toxins. The health of gut should thus be a concern of anyone hoping to lead a healthy life.
Probiotics and Gut Health
When we think of bacteria, we think of organisms that cause diseases. Our bodies harbor about 100 trillion bacteria that make up to ten times all body cells. It is important to note that some of these bacteria are good while others are bad. Probiotics are live yeast and bacteria that belong to the class of the good bacteria. The ideal ratio between these good bacteria to the bad ones is 85 percent good and 15 percent bad. If this balance is not maintained in either way, the body starts to suffer harm. Probiotics are particularly very important in gut health, and they occur naturally in the body.
Probiotics help in replacing good bacteria that have been lost after taking antibiotics. They also reduce the number of harmful bacteria that can cause body infections. They further keep the balance between good and bad bacteria to ensure that your body works optimally. These bacteria are very useful in maintaining optimum digestion and absorption of nutrients into the blood stream.
A change in dietary behavior geared towards embracing whole food and avoiding processed foods will go a long way in helping keep healthy guts. Limiting the use of antibiotics and consuming foods with agricultural chemical will ensure that your probiotics are healthy and that they exist in their right proportion. Probiotics should further be enteric coated so that the acidic digestive juices will not attack and destroy them.
Conclusion
Gut health is very essential for healthy living. Taking care of one’s gut will automatically reduce the chances of falling sick. If one’s probiotics level is very low, supplements available in many pharmaceutical outlets can be taken to bring them back to normalcy.
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