Your gut health is crucial for your overall well-being. Did you know 100 trillion bacteria, both unhealthy and healthy, live in your digestive system? This is known as gut microbiota and it greatly influences and improves your overall physical health.
Your gut health is crucial for your overall well-being. It is involved in different metabolic functions and can get adversely affected by regular and excessive consumption of gluten, sugar, highly processed foods, antibiotics along too much stress.
It’s no wonder why we need to take good care of our gut and heal it to heal ourselves.
Gut health is more important than you think
Your gut microbiome has a crucial role to play when it comes to your health. Not only does it help to manage digestion and improve your immune system, your gut also contributes to various other aspects of your health. An imbalance of good and bad microbes in your intestines can lead to high cholesterol, high blood sugar, weight gain, and other disorders.
Basic gastrointestinal and microbiome problems like candida overgrowth, leaky gut syndrome, and SIBO usually lead to every health problem we face in this modern day.
Related: Gut Health and Mental Health: Understanding The Gut-Brain Connection
Why you need to be concerned
Around 80% of your immune tissue is in your digestive system. It means a healthy gut is a determining factor for a healthy immune system.
Furthermore, an unhealthy gut can result in many issues like –
- Cancer
- Autoimmune conditions
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Fatigue
- Weight gain
- Type 2 diabetes
- Inflammatory bowel diseases
- Heart disease
- Arthritis
Some of the most common symptoms of an unhealthy gut include-
- Acid reflux
- Diarrhea
- Constipation
- Bloating
- Stomach pain
- Irritable bowel syndrome
However, the absence of such common signs does not imply that you have a healthy gut. The fact is underlying gut problems most often don’t have any noticeable gut symptoms. Almost 22% of individuals facing gut problems can damage their small intestines significantly without experiencing any gastrointestinal symptoms.
If you think just because you have a normal bowel movement, you don’t have any gut issues then you couldn’t be more wrong. Regardless, practicing gut-friendly habits is important if you are concerned about your gut health.
Healthy gut means a healthy body
If you’re wondering if your gut is unhealthy and how long it takes for your gut to heal, then you’re in luck. But first, we need to understand our gut a little more. The surface area of the human gut is about 300 square meters. If you decided to spread your gut around it would cover an entire tennis court. These court-spanning gut-lining cells inside you are known as enterocytes which are regenerating themselves continually.
According to research, a typical healthy gut can regenerate into a completely new gut lining every 2 to 3 weeks. However, if your gut is not that healthy then it could take from 2 weeks to 12 weeks to heal completely considering you’re a healthy person without any inflammatory health issues, food sensitivities, autoimmune conditions, or other chronic conditions.
A Harvard study, published in Nature – a medical journal, observed that significant improvement in gut bacteria occurs actively within just 3 days after changing diet.
This clearly goes to show the impact of the food we consume and how diet can affect our health directly. If you take enough effort to change your diet & lifestyle, you will have better gastrointestinal function, less bloating, a balanced weight, better energy, and clearer skin. It may also improve various conditions like autoimmune diseases, anxiety, and depression, migraines, eczema, allergies, and asthma.
However, as most of us have some health issues, improving your gut health becomes a more complicated and difficult process.
Related: 10 Ways To Stimulate Your Vagus Nerve for Better Physical and Mental Health
