If you intestine it’s not healthy, it can affect your overall well-being in countless ways. “The average human being has 100 trillion microbes in the gut, which is 10 times more than the cells in the human body. This collection of bacteria and fungi inhabit our bodies (weighing about three pounds total! ) cells,” says Daniel Neides, M.D.. “Although it has been largely thought that these organisms simply coexist on our skin and in our gastrointestinal tract, it has become apparent that our microbiome is critical to our overall health and survival.” Here are five signs your gut is making you sick, according to doctors. Read on and to ensure your health and the health of others, don’t miss these Sure signs you’ve already had COVID.
Did you know that your gut can affect your mental health? “When we consider the connection between the brain and the gut, it is important to know that 90% of serotonin receptors are located in the gut.” says Uma Naidoo, M.D.. “In the relatively new field of nutritional psychiatry, we help patients understand how gut health and diet can affect their mood in positive or negative ways. When someone is prescribed an antidepressant, such as a selective inhibitor of serotonin reuptake (SSRI), the most common side effects are related, with many people temporarily experiencing nausea, diarrhea, or gastrointestinal problems.There is an anatomical and physiological two-way communication between the gut and the brain via the vagus nerve.The gut axis -brain offers us a greater understanding of the connection between diet and the brain and diseases, including depression and anxiety.”
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There is a great deal of evidence showing how an unhealthy gut can seriously affect the immune system. “We’ve shown how diet affects the immune system through a microbial mediator in the gut, and this is a really amazing example of the diet-microbiota-immunity triad at play.” says Dennis Kasper, professor of immunology at the Blavatnik Institute at Harvard Medical School. “What this paper really does is provide a step-by-step path from start to finish that explains how and why this triad works and how diet ultimately affects the immune system.”
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If your intestine is out of place, it could lead to inflammation, experts warn. “Trillions of bacteria that we know of reside within our intestinal tract… We’ve known for over a decade that these bacteria are beneficial to us, the host, and help metabolize some of the food, such as fiber, that we digest.” says Gail Cresci, PhD, RD. “These bacteria have the metabolic machinery to digest and ferment these fibers and, in response, generate beneficial byproducts that we know are anti-inflammatory and also immunomodulatory. That’s just one factor. We know that when your diet isn’t optimal, then let’s say your diet It’s not rich in these fibers that the bacteria like to eat, so if it’s high in fat, high in sugar, the bacteria will change its composition to a less desirable composition, so these bacteria take over, and instead of producing those by-products beneficial metabolic processes, produce things that are not beneficial. That’s where inflammation can start to flare.”
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Bacteria in your gut can influence your weight: One study showed that specific metabolites found in blood plasma and stool samples were directly linked to obesity. “This means that future studies should focus more on how the composition of gut bacteria can be modified to reduce the risk of obesity and associated cardiovascular and metabolic diseases.” says Marju Orho-Melander, professor of genetic epidemiology at Lund University in Sweden..
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Your gut health can affect your sleep, and poor sleep in turn can affect your gut health. “Sleep deprivation can affect your digestive health by increasing your risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes and gastrointestinal disease, as well as by influencing the foods you choose to eat.” says Fatema Badri, ANutr. “Researchers have even found that poor sleep quality is linked to heart problems. There is growing evidence that the composition of your gut microbiome is related to how well you sleep.”
