Gut Health

So far I have written about my business venture, network marketing and being a Mum, but the biggest factor impacting my life (outside of my family) is my gut health, as many of you know it is what lead me to my current business venture, it is what drives me more often than not in most areas of my life, whether it be research, books I chose to read, what foods I eat, understanding how I feel - literally everything. So as this blog is all about me I thought it would be a good idea to write a blog about “Gut Health”

In a previous blog I wrote about a book I was reading called The Answers, by Allan and Barbara Pease, well recently my conscious mind decided it was time for me to start researching about gut health, a course on nutrition seemed to land in my lap and also I found a really interesting book on Gut Health and ever since then I am literally seeing so much more on this topic, things I just hadn’t seen before were lurking everywhere under my nose!

So what have I learnt so far…..

• Did you know that our gut is actually our second brains!

Scientists have not really done very much research into our guts, unlike the rest of our body up until recently, it is now becoming the hot topic and scientists are working hard to understand the gut and its many functions, I don’t know about you but I am very interested to keep an eye on what is discovered and how these discoveries can be used to improve our quality of life, especially for IBD/IBS sufferers and amazingly people who suffer from depression.

In our gut you will find the Enteric Nervous System, a collection of over 500 million neurons, this is second only to the brain, it is not the same lump like organ as our main brain, it is more like a mesh that is integrated into the whole gut system from our mouths all the way to the “exit”. Our enteric nervous system is not a conscious brain though like our brain but without it we couldn’t survive either, interestingly the gut system still functions even if we are brain damaged or dead, although the brain does not control the functions of the gut there is definitely 2 way communication going on where the brain is most definitely the leader of the pack! If the brain is in need of additional energy resource the brain tells the gut to stop functioning - this could explain why in times of stress we tend not to eat as much food or we have nervous nausea or diarrhea, our brains need energy to deal with the stress that it essentially steals from the energy reserves for the gut!

• Did you know that over 80% of our immune system lies within our gut?

How many times have you heard the saying “trust your gut instincts” well when it comes to our immune system and our health perhaps this old wives tale has more truth in it than we thought!

Our guts are often the first entry point for bad bacteria or viruses and so it is vitality important that our gut immunity is at its optimum.There is a recent increase of people taking a probiotic supplement to increase/feed good bacteria in our digestion to maintain a healthy balance.

Without the good bacteria that resides in our gut our immune system would not be able to do its job properly, however research into the effectiveness of taking supplements or drinking the live cultures is still yet to be proven, there is some thought that just by adding additional good bacteria to the gut does not necessarily mean that they will survive and grow, however there is also thought that taking such supplements especially for IBD/IBS sufferers can be beneficial. Our gut is such a diverse and complicated huge part of our bodies that scientist are only just beginning to decipher it, the one thing that is already standing out is how individual we all are and that the trillions of microbiomes that we each have in our gut is so very different for each individual. It is going to take many years for a better understanding to be developed.

• Did you know that our guts produce over 90% of our serotonin?

Serotonin, also known as the happy chemical, it is considered a natural mood stabiliser that helps with sleeping, eating, and digesting. High levels are just as bad as low levels with each having different impacts on the body, for example low levels can increase your libido but also increase depression, high levels can decrease libido and reduce depression!

Serotonin has an impact on both our brains and our enteric nervous system (gut) and for this reason serotonin levels can also impact IBS/IBD sufferers, however it seems that the medication for helping with depressions and anxiety which help the body produce the right amount of serotonin do not have the same impact on the gut and scientists are trying to produce a similar drug for IBS/IBD sufferers - watch this space…

There is still so much more that needs to be learnt about how our gut works and I think the next few decades are going to be very interesting, especially for me as an IBD sufferer.

I have been learning a lot over the past few weeks about all of this but I am also a firm believer in that we are all very different individuals, solutions that work for one may make another worse so it is so important that we don’t give up and think nothing will work for us, keep trying - you will find what works for you if you just keep trying - it's kind of a moto in my house - “all we ever ask is that you try”!

I would love to hear from other IBS/IBD sufferers and what they do that works to help relieve their symptoms.

#GutHealth #homeworking #IBS #IBD