Your health and your intestinal health are closely linked. The trillions of bacteria that cover your GI channel contribute to your immune system, the function of your brain and risk factors for heart conditions, obesity and type 2 diabetes. How can you ensure that you take care of your intestines with the crucial role?
It is not surprising that what you eat plays a crucial role in the health of your intestinal microbioma. Eating a diet rich in fruit and vegetables, full grains and probiotics gives your microbiome what it needs to thrive. You must also be careful with foods and practices that make you susceptible to inflammation and intestinal infections.
Here are 4 items to avoid to protect and cure your intestines.
1. Alcohol
Alcohol is surplus the balance and health of your intestine. Even a single episode of destroying (with an alcohol concentration of the blood of 0.08 g/dl or more) can cause a leaking intestine and a significant increase in bacterial toxins in your bloodstream. (1) When your intestine leaking, inflammatory food particles and yeast can also penetrate your intestinal wall, so that you can be open to immune membrane and candida overgrowth.
Alcohol is essentially liquid sugar. Sugar in all its forms feeds the bad bacteria and candida in your stomach. You may want to stick to a clear drink, lower in sugar, such as vodka, mixed with soft drink water and a dash of citrus for taste. Stay only one drink a day for women and two for men. This is the amount of alcohol that your body can safely detox without serious consequences.
2. Refined sugar
Sugar can be harmful to your health in several ways, including changing the way your intestine functions. Just like alcohol, sugar is an inflammatory food that can cause a leaking intestine and put you on your way to autoimmune diseases. (2,3) Consuming sugar-containing foods and drinks leads to increased production of advanced glycation end products (AGEs) (which cause oxidative stress), and spikes of inflammatory markers such as CRRRR-Active protein (CRP). Inflammation causes almost every chronic disease, including type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis.
Sugar has the power to relocate the bacterium communities in your intestines, and influences how much and which types of bacteria live in your malge. This can influence your weight and cause a whole series of problems related to an imbalance of microflora. (4) Sugar also feeds Candida overgrowth, which leads to its own series of related health problems.
3. Gluten and dairy products
Gluten and dairy are two of the most inflammatory foods that I recommend to avoid everyone for optimum intestinal health.
Studies have linked gluten to a wide range of chronic health problems, including eczema and other skin rash, (5) Alzheimer’s and dementia, (6) irritable bowel syndrome, (7) and of course car -immune diseases. (8)
Refined grain products are especially dangerous. Found in most fried delicacies and white rolls, refined flour can nail your blood sugar level, disrupt your delicate intestinal balance and create a breeding ground for Candida for flourishing.
Many people also have sensitivities for dairy products. That is because about 70 percent of the population stop producing lactase – the enzyme needed to digest the lactose – once that they have finished breastfeeding. (9)
Even if you are not lactose intolerant, you may still be sensitive to casein and meadow, two dairy proteins. You can damage your intestine lining without even being aware of it. These two dairy proteins can be difficult for you to digest, create inflammation in your body and to activate your immune system in the same way as gluten. In fact, it is a common scenario for both sensitivities to appear at the same time: 50 percent of patients appeared to respond to both casein and gluten in one study. (10)
4. Stress and lack of sleep
Life is busy and hectic and causes stress and difficulties for many. Increased levels of the “stress hormone” cortisol due to excess stress and a lack of sleep activates your immune system to produce inflammation in response to acute or chronic stress, which means that stress is not only a feeling – it is an inflammatory state. (12.13)
However, do not turn on alcohol to find tension. Drinking alcohol can even worsen that stress, activate your HPA axis and increase the levels of cortisol (11)
Stress also influences your intestines deeply because of the way your brain and your intestine act on each other. (14) Studies show that your intestinal bacteria change if you are stressed. Stress can also increase intestinal permeability and reduce the motility in your GI channel, making the digestion less effective. (15) This, together with the way in which chronic stress harms your immune system, creates the perfect environment for Candida to flourish.
It is important to arm yourself with stress lighting strategies for when you feel overwhelmed. At the moment, deep breathing exercises can be very centered and help to relieve your sympathetic nervous system (which controls your combat or flight reaction), while at the same time you are activated the “relaxation reaction” of your parasympathetic nervous system. (16)
Planning a “me-time” can be extremely valuable. It is essential to block the time every day when you can concentrate on you: what yoga do, get a massage or just enjoy some time “vegetation” to relax the hectic.
References:
https://www.umassmed.edu/news/news-archives/2014/05/single-episode-of-ing-drinking-avertelely-affects-health/.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc5609573/.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc4034518/.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc6024874/#b23-nutrients-10-00761.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26389946.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25642988.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26690475.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26026392.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeAndstyle/2016/nov/21/should-humans-drink-cows-milk.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc1810502/.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc22266962/.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120402162546.htm.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9415946.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and–conditions/the-gut-brain-connection.
//www.jpp.krakow.pl/journal/archive/12_11/pdf/591_12_11_article.pdf.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/201705/diaphragmathmathmath-breathing-exercises-and-your-vagus-nerg.