Hello dear friends and family!  It’s been a little while since we sent you a tip!  We’re excited to change the conversation BACK to health. Now is the best time to re-focus our minds and bodies on things we can control!  That being said we are going to talk about GUT HEALTH.  This is a great place to start when it comes to boosting your immune system, addressing pain, improving nutrient absorption, harnessing good skin health, having regular or healthy bowel movements, and MORE!

Before we begin, it is a good idea to FIRST look into liver health.  This is the first puzzle piece when addressing gut health.  Supporting or cleansing your liver paves the way to better gut health.  Now let’s get started!

Gut Health

Most of you have heard about leaky gut syndrome.  This is a name that basically describes a condition where the bowels or intestinal lining has small perforations or slits in it.  What does this mean?  Chemicals and bacteria from our food can slowly penetrate through these small perforations and will travel into the blood stream.  This can cause all kinds of symptoms like fatigue, poor digestion, aches/pain, stomach aches, headaches, nausea– basically a whole slew of unwanted health conditions.  Unfortunately, this can be very common.  It can happen from long term antibiotic or pharmaceutical use, exposure to toxins, pesticides,  steroids, processed foods, etc.

We are mentioning leaky gut syndrome because it is fairly common and under diagnosed.  The protocols to help this condition really helps the digestive system in general!  Whether you have it or not, following a regimen that is geared to “healing and sealing” the gut will be beneficial for the whole body! Our digestive health can always use some love.  Even if you eat well and exercise, un-managed stress on the body has the ability to affect your gut health.  Now more than ever is a good time to focus on the health of your gut, as Hippocrates once said, “All dis-ease begins in the gut.”

Diet for Gut Health

A well known medical doctor, Dr Natasha Campbell McBride, has done extensive research on gut health and the connection to mental health as well as the immune system. She has created a detailed food protocol to heal and seal the gut.  You can check out the GAPS protocol for a great reference on creating a healing diet for your gut!  In her protocol she talks about the importance of nutrient dense bone broth for healing the gut lining.  This is a great place to start!  If you don’t have the time or energy to make it yourself you can try a powdered version of bone broth that is quick and convenient.  The idea here is to start simple and build the new habit and protocol!

Supplements to BOOST Gut Health

Supplements can be great to complement your gut health protocol.  This can help speed up the recovery of your digestive system.  The goal is to create a better environment for a healthy microbiome.  The microbiome is the genetic material of all the microbes – bacteria, fungi, protozoa and viruses – that live on and inside the human body.  Therefore, you want to incorporate nutrients that those organisms eat!  Inulin FOS is a type of fiber with a carbohydrate (FOS- Fructooligosaccharide) that these lil guys eat!  It is considered a pre-biotic.  Pre-biotics are the food that all our good organisms that live within us eat.  Feed the good guys STARVE the bad guys!

As discussed above, Bone Broth helps with repairing the inner tissues of you gut lining.  Aloe Vera is another great option to try.  Aloe Vera helps condition and tighten the internal tissue.  Herbal Aloe has gut friendly herbs to help sooth the lining and help nourish the stomach juices for digesting food.  Another helpful supplement for healing the gut lining is L-Glutamine.  Glutamine is a major fuel source for the cells in the small intestines and can be very helpful to help repair gut health!

Once you have incorporated gut friendly food and have gradually up’d your intake of dietary fiber you can begin to incorporate a high potency probiotic to help re-colonize your microbiome.  You may want to try different types of probiotics to see what works best for your system.  Everyone’s microbiome is unique!  We like Flora Super Bifidio Plus because it is very high potency and will help re-colonize your good bacteria!  You also want to incorporate a good yeast such as saccharomyces boulardii (often referred to as a pro-biotic but it’s actually a friendly yeast).   Digestive Enzymes can also be extremely helpful.  They can help your stomach break down the food you eat and jump start the digestive process.

These are very basic gut health tips and info to improve gut health.  In fact, Scientists and Doctors have only scratched the surface of the role that our microbiome plays in our over all health.  They have even identified that certain strains of good bacteria improve mood, cognitive function, or even improve our social skills!  The microbiome is fascinating, we encourage you to dig deeper and geek out on gut health– your life depends on it and so does your poop!

We hope you enjoyed our first tip we’ve written in a while!  We miss you all and look forward to seeing you in person SOON!

In the meantime– STAY SANE!

**Email us at hello@elitenutritionstore.com and let us know what you’d like us to blog about next week.  We’d like to know what health tips you want to hear about!

As always, do what you feel is best for YOUR body– if you aren’t sure, ask your doctor. We are health ENTHUSIASTS not licensed practitioners.