Trillions of bacteria throughout the body, and particularly on the skin and in the intestines, all work together to help regulate our body so that it functions optimally; our immune system, heart, weight, moods, and even how we sleep. Your gut is the foundation of your overall health.

Optimise your gut >< Optimise your health

While there are many factors that can lead to an unhealthy gut, there are lots of things we can do to restore optimal gut health.

Remove

The first step is to remove the factors that negatively impact the gastrointestinal (GI) tract and may be contributing to your symptoms. These triggers may be varied, because there’s often not just one trigger, but can be a few. Triggers may not only be pathogens in the gut such as bacteria or yeast/candida, but may also be food sensitivities, medications, sugar/refined carbs, fried/fatty foods, stress, toxic elements and foods that your body finds difficult to digest. We need to find out what triggers your symptoms.

Replace

In this step, you and your naturopath can replace all those factors that may be missing or lacking such as insufficient stomach acid, insufficient digestive enzymes, insufficient beneficial bacteria, or nutrient deficiencies.

Re-inoculate

Your naturopath will help you to re-inoculate your gut with good bacteria by using targeted prebiotics and probiotics in order to regain a healthy balance. Prebiotics help to feed and promote the growth of beneficial bacteria. Introducing beneficial bacteria plays an important role as they produce anti-inflammatory compounds, essential nutrients. It’s even better when we find out precisely which types of beneficial bacteria you’re low in so that we can choose a strain-specific probiotic.

Repair

The fourth and final step in the process is to repair the lining of your gut. A leaky gut can contribute to many health concerns (brain fog, anxiety, depression, irritability, headaches, IBS, inflammation, autoimmunity and lots more).

Gaps in the intestinal wall can form with microscopic holes in the gut lining, which allows bacteria and other toxins to move through into your bloodstream. This leads to inflammation because unhealthy elements begin moving into other parts of your body where they shouldn’t be.

Your naturopath may suggest the use of nutraceutical agents to repair the gut lining. Your diet will also play a big role in this step.

Targeted nutrients and herbal medicines for gut healing

There are a number of supplements that can be used to help repair the intestinal tract:

Glutamine

Glutamine been found to reduce gastrointestinal permeability, help to heal a damaged gut wall, and reduce inflammation and irritation.

Slippery elm bark

Slippery elm bark has a long history of use as a soothing agent for the gastrointestinal tract, and it’s particularly helpful for gastritis, reflux, ulcers, and IBS. It’s also great for people who have the tendency to constipate.

Curcumin

Curcumin is the active compound in turmeric which reduces intestinal permeability due to its anti-inflammatory action. It is also an antioxidant, antimicrobial and has been shown clinically to perform better than some anti-inflammatory pharmaceuticals.

Zinc

Zinc has been proven to successfully heal a damaged intestinal barrier in human clinical trials.

Collagen

Collagen forms part of the building blocks of our skin. It is strengthening the skin membranes and provides elasticity and skin smoothness, thereby an important component of healing.

Mastic gum/gum arabia/acacia

Mastic gum is the resin obtained from the Pistacia lentiscus tree. Mastic gum’s medicinal properties have been utilised for thousands of years for gastrointestinal ailments as it is soothing an irritated gut wall, as well as providing antibacterial and antiviral properties. It has even been shown effective in killing helicobacter pylori. 

Aloe vera

Aloe Vera is extremely soothing on the gut wall. It is used as a gut healing medicine for ulcerative colitis and gastric ulcers and other conditions that require wound healing.

Omega 3 fatty acids

Omega 3 fatty acids increase the diversity of healthy bacteria, help to regulate the immune system, decrease inflammation, and enhance the production of intestinal alkaline phosphatase (IAP), which induces changes in the gut bacteria composition resulting in decreased gut permeability.

Probiotics

Probiotics have been shown to assist in healing a damaged gut wall due to an increase in beneficial bacteria adhering to the gut wall and producing short chain fatty acids.

Bone broth

Bone broth is easily digested and absorbed, and at the same time it’s extremely soothing to the gut wall because it contains gelatin and collagen, which are great for gut integrity and reducing inflammation.

Herbal medicines such as licorice, gotu kola, and marshmellow

These herbal medicines contain healing compounds are highly anti-inflammatory and promote healing of the gut wall. They are protective of the mucosal lining and have both demulcent and emollient properties. They are great for irritation on the gut wall, reflux, and IBS.

 

 

Yvette is a qualified Naturopath and Nutritionist, MINDD Practitioner, member of the Naturopaths and Herbalists Association of Australia.

Yvette specialises in the treatment of gut health and digestive complaints, skin issues, mood disorders, hormonal concerns, fatigue, and more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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