Signs your gut is off

If there are hallmark symptoms to your gut being off, these are it! The diversity and amount of bacteria living in your gut and on your body impact your overall physical and mental health. 

Yes, you have bacteria and bugs…everywhere.

You need them and they need you. Don’t be fooled by the manufacturers that try to tell you to kill all the bugs.

The bacteria are called your microbiome and symptoms such as constipation, diarrhea, and gas occur when the balance of your bacteria is not right for you.

 Gas is typically a sign that your food is fermenting in your gut which could be from low stomach acid, imbalance of bacteria, or problems with the enzymes needed to break down the food.

A common one is lactose intolerance. You don’t have enough of the lactase enzyme to breakdown the lactose. 

Have you tried to cut down sugar but always seem to elbow deep the next week in those treats?

It may not be your fault or your “lack of willpower”

These sugar-loving bugs set up shop in your microbiome and they may make you experience even more sugar cravings. Which is a vicious cycle!

These sugar-loving bugs are similar to a gang and they want to continue to thrive and have control.

Our diet is incredibly important with every bite we tell which bacteria to thrive and grow.

The “bad” bacteria are the same way, they enjoy certain types of food – often sugar. 

They can increase sugar cravings in a few different ways

• Change your taste receptors – making you prefer sweet flavours
• Release hormones, like serotonin, that make you feel good after eating certain foods. Which makes you feel good after eating them… so you continue to eat them.
• Stimulate the “ Big V ”. This may lead to overeating and the vagus nerve is important for everything digestive and mental health.
• Affect your appetite hormones – making you feel hungry when you shouldn’t be. Add this to a dysbiosis (imbalance between good and bad bacteria) in the gut that causes sleep problems that compound the issue of telling you when you’re full or hungry

To sum it up, the bacteria try to get us to eat foods that they thrive on.

If you eat a high sugar diet, you’ll feed those unhelpful bacteria which secrete those proteins to make you crave more sugars.

Good luck trying to use your willpower to fight that! It’s a freakin vicious cycle 

Fixing your gut issues, leaky gut, can crush those bacteria out causing the food cravings in the first place

We have a hidden highway in our bodies that most people don’t know. It’s the highway between our gut and our brains.

It’s called the gut-brain axis and the road is our “Vagus nerve” or Big V

It’s a bidirectional pathway between or gastrointestinal tract and our nervous system, which is critical to our mental health.

There are many reasons our gut is off or we have gut dysbiosis.

They can be micronutrient deficiencies from poor gut function, stress, diet, or toxic overload. 

These affect how our neurotransmitters are made and used.

A compromised gut will affect your ability to use serotonin, dopamine, and vitamin D – which is more of a hormone than a vitamin.

About 80% of serotonin and half of the dopamine are made in the gut.

The serotonin made in the gut doesn’t cross our blood-brain-barrier, it will play other important roles.

There’s research piling up that points to a strong relationship between your gut, mood, and even behaviour disorders that include anxiety, depression, and autism. 

One very (nerdy and) interesting study found that transferring the poop bacteria of depressed rats to rats that weren’t depressed led to depressed behaviour in the rats without depression (how can you really tell rats to be depressed?). 

Gross, I know. But thought-provoking, none the less.

We can look Nature, a large nature research journal, that found friendly bacteria were able to cheer up anxious mice

There’s also evidence mounting that a healthy gut microbiome can help reduce anxiety

A systematic review and meta-analysis looked at the use of probiotics and found that probiotics were associated with a significant reduction in depression – more research is still required

Improving your gut dysbiosis will be critical for supporting your mental health.

Your organs for your digestive system don’t just help you digest food, but they affect your emotions as well. 

If you have food intolerances, it’s almost always a result of “leaky gut”.

We know the gut is the gatekeeper for what gets in and what stays out.

One of the most important functions of our gut is to prevent foreign substances from entering our bodies. This can be with anything that isn’t digested, will pass right through.

It can be through inflammation to kill it, anaphylaxis or a low-grade inflammatory response with every bite we take. 

When our intestinal barrier becomes permeable with leaky gut (or intestinal permeability), large protein molecules escape into the bloodstream.

These proteins don’t belong in the bloodstream, only in the gut, your body mounts an immune response and attacks them to get rid of them. This immune response shows up as food intolerances. 

Which is a sign that your gut is off. 

Sleep problems seem to be a two-way street. Gut problems can cause sleep issues and sleep issues can cause gut problems. 

Our sleep and circadian rhythms appear to affect the health and diversity of our microbiome. We’re still at the beginning stages of understanding the complicated, dynamic relationship between these two. 

There’s enough research to show that not sleeping enough can quickly harm your microbiome health 

In 2016, a study looked at the effect of short-term sleep deprivation on the composition of the human microbiome – though a small study, 9 health, young, and normal weight men. None of them had any sleep disorders.

After only two nights of partial sleep deprivation, scientists found:

• A significant decrease in types of beneficial bacteria
• Changes to the composition of micro-organisms in the microbiome that are linked specifically to obesity and type 2 diabetes
• A significant decrease in insulin sensitivity

As we gain more understanding of our gut microbiome, it’s clear that many skin conditions don’t start on the skin level – they stem from the gut.

Here are 11 skin conditions that begin in the gut:

• Eczema
• Rosacea
• Acne vulgaris
• Cystic acne
• Psoriasis
• Dandruff
• Alopecia
• Vitiligo
• Oral mucosal lesions (mouth sores) 

If you’ve been struggling with any of these, you may want to check your gut.

If you’re struggling with skin, you may want to stop wasting your money on those expensive creams, lotions, topical treatments, or the new “acne probiotics”

The link between leaky gut, autoimmune conditions, and food sensitivities is huge.

We can look at thyroid disease, leaky gut can be from a gluten intolerance – which is WAY too common. 

Removing the gluten for these people and working on gut health has made the symptoms management and disease reversal possible for these types of clients.

The evidence is growing that increased intestinal permeability plays a pathogenic role in various autoimmune diseases – celiac and type 1 diabetes for example. 

Halitosis or chronic bad breath can not only be embarrassing but it can come from odour-inducing microbes in your oral microbiome. It can be also be linked to gum disease. 

Your dentist may have not told you but we know that gum disease is linked to other diseases such as heart disease, cancer, erectile dysfunction, and brain illnesses.

Having a less than optimal gut bacteria can make you vulnerable to those conditions