Trust Your Gut - The Foundation Of Your entire health — TrulyWell by Adriana Liberatore, MS, RDN

If you’ve made your way to my blog, you probably know something about the healthy bacteria that lives on our body. Yet, the topic goes far beyond the basics that you may have learned from other health blogs and nutritionists.

In fact - did you know that There’s a “bootcamp” of sorts that takes place for your immune system, within your gut? From the moment we are born, our immune systems are training in their own bootcamp of sorts.

Our gut microbiome (gut bacteria) literally is the foundation of our immunity. Therefore, keeping a balance between healthy gut bacteria is essential for maintaining your overall health.

In studies of mice born in germ free environments (without any bacteria), it has been found that, by providing them even with a restricted bacterial flora, their immune system develops substantially. From this experiment, we have gathered that a diverse gut flora leads to better immunity by adapting the immune system to new and different types of environments.

So, bringing it back to your immune system’s bootcamp for a sec: do you think that you would be better prepared for battle if you consistently trained on the same course, over and over, or would you be better off training on multiple courses, never knowing which one you’re going to train on today, and also having the consistent challenge of having to be prepared for anything?

THAT is why it is so important to provide your gut with a diverse flora of bacteria. In a sense, it gives your immune system a challenge - almost an all-natural vaccine of sorts. And when given antibiotics, it throws the whole system off - making the “bootcamp” almost non-existent for a while, which is definitely essential as your immune system goes into a real battle - however, long term, it doesn’t work in your favor.

Antibiotics are one of those things that throw off the balance of your gut bacteria, therefore devastatingly leading to immunity issues (and much more) down the road when overdone. I’m someone who had been on 14 rounds of antibiotics by the age of 7, and so I speak from experience when I say that antibiotics are an evil necessity. While they may be necessary for short term health, they are absolutely detrimental in the long term. Because of this overprescribing of antibiotics during my childhood, my gut microbiome and immunity were completely shot by my teen years, and I’m still feeling the effects YEARS later in my 30’s.

Every year, over 1 million antibiotic prescriptions are given out to out-patients. Yes - you and me. That equates to 5 prescriptions per every 6 people per year. Seems overkill? You’d be right to guess that.

As you can clearly see by now, gut problems can lead to detrimental effects in one of the key parts of our health and wellbeing - our immunity. However, the link between health and gut doesn’t stop at our IMMUNITY.

Good bacteria in the gut also serves a purpose of acting in your favor against long-term disease. When I say that your overall health starts in the gut, I do mean quite literally. Besides the gut-immunity connection, there are also several other links to our health, among them being the gut-lung, gut-liver, and gut-brain axes.

The brain connection is perhaps the most interesting - it’s become known among health professionals that patients who suffer from inflammatory bowel syndrome also often suffer from depression. If you’ve ever questioned why you feel icky (both physically and emotionally) after a night of binge eating sweets or other junk food, well, now you know. These foods are affecting you on a chemical level, starting with your gut and leading to your brain.

So - do you have high cholesterol? Trouble losing weight? Indigestion? Are prediabetic? Suffer from SIBO or diverticulitis? There’s a surprising link between all of these health problems, and it lives in your gut! And if you’re anything like me, then years of antibiotic cycles might be affecting your gut, and thus leading to these problems or even worse.

What’s the fix to this big gut-mess then?

Just last week, I just finished up a round of antibiotics for a chronic ear infection - the very culprit that caused me to get on those multiple rounds of antibiotics as a kid.

This week, I’ve been focusing on things that I can do to build back my gut microbiota - the about-100 trillion bacteria living inside your digestive system. The microbiota must be balanced in order to operate effectively, and antibiotics throw them way off balance, which is why they lead to so many problems. These are simple things that I recommend to anyone after a round of antibiotics - or anytime, really, as balancing your gut bacteria is never a bad idea. Below are a few ideas to help you understand what I’ve been doing.