What’s your gut feeling?
Hungry right now actually! This I simply put down to being at home. Stuck. Often sitting near to the kitchen and the lovely blueberry, date and nut snack balls I made this week. I say ‘balls’, that might be just ‘ball’ now. Hmmmm
This story I plan to evolve over the coming days is actually about optimising your health. In particular at the current time, being at your best is of particular importance. Starting here with your wriggly insides and the whopping influence they have on your immune status. Now who’s interested?! This first post for my lockdown promise was inspired by the paper I saw published entitled
Published Jan 11th, 2021 in the BMJ.
Wow.
The conclusion made was that whilst this coronavirus is recognised primarily as a respiratory illness, the state of the gut microbiota is significantly relevant in the individual’s response to infection.
The research showed a significant difference in good/bad bacteria levels in those patients with COVID compared to a control group, especially when antibiotics were used as part of the therapy for COVID. In these cases it is discussed that you may consider the restoration of a healthy gut microbiome being of even greater importance. This is of interest with potential for association with ‘long COVID’, or the sustained systemic immune response.
For us here today, let’s say we could (almost) all do for this wake up to improve our metabolic state and gut health.
A little lesson in the gut structure to start. Different functions exist in the walls of the gut from the start in the mouth to the out pipe at the other end. Ultimately the food goes in, should be broken down systematically as it passes through, the goodness is drawn across the gut lining into the blood and then waste is accumulated and expelled. All good. Health.
The gut wall is effectively a British bulldog set up of cells tied together with tight junctions (linked arms) and a layer of slime covering the surface (use your imagination here but that was never in the games I played). Solid barrier. Champion team. Lets his own team mates through and nothing else.
If the quality of the slime is poor and/or the tight junctions (arm links) break down, one charge from a bacteria, or partially digested foodstuff across the line and on the other side you have a blood stream with raging immune cells trying to kill the invader (there were feral kids on the other team at my junior school). Aka systemic inflammation. Aka primed immune system which just needs a trigger now to send it into overdrive.
Altered microbiota aka dysbiosis? This means the wrong mix of good/bad gut geezers commonly resulting from excessive sugars/carbs, poor digestion and breakdown, stress, some drugs, alcohol and infections creating a sustained inflammatory response and a well recognised route to destruction of the tight junctions and quality of mucosal barrier. Game over kids.
There are many things we’ll talk about regarding gut health. One mouthful at a time I say. Today…
Start getting your gut bacteria in shape 🙂
So we may be tired, fed up, reaching for a glass of wine etc etc, but how about pulling those socks up and taking one step towards being a stronger you by feeding your gut pets the right dinner? Which in turn contributes to a strong gut lining and thus reduces systemic inflammation. Look at the causes of disrupted microbiota mentioned above. Do your best to steer away from those and also look at what you can do to to feed your good gut geezers what they need to thrive. Search ‘prebiotic foods’.
I like a good challenge. For me embracing fermenting has been a hit and miss show the past few years. I’ve joined the local Facebook group Counter Cultures run by Dani Higgs-Patterson which is so inspiring. I will use my time to make kimchi again and to get some water kefir going which I’m inspired to add elderberry to, making a nice glass of fizzy red stuff.
I’m also a big fan of the KTea kombucha. An immediate hit of fermented goodness which will beef my team up in there, and an easy win if you don’t want to spend any time preparing. That said, fermenting is awesome in that the time taken by you is minuscule. You sleep while the bacteria do the prep for you.
Win win!!
We’re in a timely reminder of how good we have had it in Guernsey. The virus might be out there, amongst many others for that matter, but if we support our defence system we make a huge step to improving our health and thus giving us a head start to challenge any virus or bacteria we meet. Infection doesn’t have to equal disease, so do your best to prepare well. I’m beefing up my health so I can be one of the 80% who barely know they’ve had this one 🙂
Up next- Hydration…..