Gut Flora Program – Good and Bad Bacteria

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We have good bacteria and bad bacteria in our in our intestinal tract and we have an intestinal wall to keep them all in. For some people, the bad bacteria way outweighs the good and the intestinal walls aren’t so solid. This can lead to a myriad of problems. We’ve got to do everything we can to maintain gut health and the integrity of the gut wall. Why? For instance, if you have a history of anxiety and depression, did you know that that 95% of all serotonin is made in the gut? Good gut bacteria also produce hundreds of neurochemicals that the brain uses to regulate basic physiological processes as well as mental processes such as learning, memory and mood. There are scientist who have actually nicknamed the gut “The Second Brain.” The little brain in our insides, connect with our big brain in our skull and partly determines our mental state.

Maybe you have weight problems. If you don’t have the guts anymore, you will absorb 200 more calories a day out of a 2000 calorie diet. You won’t absorb all the vitamins and minerals from your food and supplements that help you to lose weight – not to mention, you can’t conjugate excess estrogen which means the estrogen will go back into circulation, contributing to weight gain (they inject estrogen into cattle to fatten them up).

I know lots of people have digestive problems – I see it all the time. Digestion starts in the North and moves to the South. You need to break down your food in your stomach first, so you don’t have a lot of partially digested food moving into your guts for all the bad bacteria to feed off of, giving you gas, bloating, constipation, IBS, Diverticulitis, etc. But you also need to repair the gut and make it a more hospitable place for good bacteria to grow. That will help your digestive problems, too.

For those concerned with their immune system, (that should be all of us) having a permeable gut lining is the worst! When your gut lining is permeable, bacteria, foreign proteins and viruses are able to leak out into the bloodstream setting off a powerful immune response. The immune system considers these out of place substances a big threat. Remember the 1966 movie, Fantastic Voyage? The immune system was trying to destroy them, because they were foreign particles in the body!

This immune response increases inflammation, which is the basis of everything bad you don’t want to get including eczema, psoriasis, acne, coronary artery disease, cancer, diabetes and even Alzheimer’s Disease – perhaps even autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, lupus, and type 1 diabetes.

What causes you to no longer have the guts? According to Dr. Alessio Fasano, a practicing gastroenterologist and research scientist at Harvard, a permeable, leaky gut without enough of the good bacteria is caused by gluten, antibiotics, chlorinated water, lack of probiotics, and even some of the very medications you may be taking under the direction of your physician.

Let’s do this to get our guts back:

  • Quit eating sugar and refined carbohydrates – especially wheat products
  • Remove toxins from your diet including GMO’s
  • Take Antibiotics only if really necessary and quit eating them in your diet!
  • Eat fermented foods like kefir, yogurt, sauerkraut, kim chi, etc.
  • Avoid chlorinated water
  • Manage your stress
  • Do a Gut Flora Balance Program

 

These recommendations are for the reduction of stress only. They are not intended as treatment or prescription for any disease, or as a substitute for regular medical care.