We’ve only recently begun to understand the extent of our gut flora’s role in health and disease. The gut flora is known to promote normal gastrointestinal function, provides us with protection from infection, help regulate our metabolism, and comprises more than 75% of our immune system.
Studies have shown that a dysregulated gut microbiome has been linked to diseases involving the brain such as autism and depression as well as autoimmune conditions like Hashimoto’s and Rheumatoid Arthritis. A disrupted microbiome is also linked to things like obesity, diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, and colon cancer just to name a few.
Sadly many of our modern lifestyle habits are contributing directly to an unhealthy gut:
① Antibiotics and other medications like birth control and NSAIDs
② Diets high in refined carbohydrates, sugar and processed foods
③ Diets low in fermentable fibers
④ Dietary toxins like wheat and industrial seed oils that cause leaky gut
⑤ Chronic stress
⑥ Chronic infections
Check my next post with ways to help restore an unhealthy gut, as most of us are inevitably, at some time in our lives subjected to at least a few of the things listed above.
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