8 Ways to Support Your Gut Health

Sep 21, 2023
3 min read

Updated: Feb 9, 2024

You can support your gut microbiota to stay in balance and overcome dysbiosis by including these eight changes to your daily routine:

Eliminate the Factors that create Dysbiosis.

Several food and lifestyle practices can lead to gut dysbiosis. These are listed in a previous blog but include reducing your intake of processed foods, sugar, and artificial sweeteners along with reducing exposure to chemicals and some medications.

Support Your Gut Detox Process

Natural detox agents such as pectin, soluble fiber, and clinoptilolite help move toxins out of the gut via the bowel. Helping your body get rid of toxins that cause dysbiosis helps to support gut health and protect cell function. Drinking plenty of water while taking these sorts of supplements is also important.

Eat a Variety of Foods

When it comes to keeping your gut microbiota in balance the more variety the better. Incorporate a rainbow of colors into your diet with fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, sprouted nuts and seeds, and good-quality protein. Excess meat consumption may cause carcinogenic metabolites to form, altering the microbiome and impacting immunity. Eating by the season ensures food is constantly being rotated in and out of your diet. Just eat real food (JERF) which means ditching overly processed food, seed oils, and artificial flavours and colours. Eating whole (unprocessed or minimally processed) foods will provide the fibre and nutrients your gut needs to stay healthy and in balance.

Consume Bone Broth, Collagen, and Gelatin.

Bone broth helps heal the lining of the gut and while the composition will vary depending on which ingredients you have used, bone broth generally has a variety of minerals and healing compounds such as gelatin, collagen, and 3 amino acids - proline, glutamine, and arginine. These all help to seal the gut lining and reduce permeability. Together they help prevent leaky gut syndrome, support the immune system, and lower inflammation.

Eat Fermented Food or Probiotics

Probiotics aim to strengthen the natural communities of microbes in your gut (and elsewhere). They can be used to prevent and treat gut dysbiosis. Not all probiotics are alike though, with different types having different functions within your body. This is why getting tests and professional support is important as some probiotics might be better or worse for your condition.

Fermented foods are natural sources of probiotics which can help boost the beneficial microbes in your gut. Fermented foods to include in your diet might include sauerkraut, kimchi, fermented vegetables, a good quality plain yogurt, kefir, or kombucha, and miso, tempeh, and natto. How you eat them and when you eat them is an important part of a gut healing protocol.

The only caution is that both bone broth and fermented vegetables are high in histamine which can be an issue if you have histamine intolerance.

Nourish Gut Biota with Prebiotics

The health and composition of your gut microbiota is dictated by the types and proportion of beneficial bacteria, and we should feed the good guys and starve out the less beneficial ones. We can do this by eating prebiotics which are non-digestible fibers that feed the beneficial bacteria. Prebiotics are found in various fruits, vegetables, and whole grains such as green bananas, onions, garlic, leeks, asparagus, artichokes, and seaweed, and can also be taken in powder form such as PHGG, inulin, flaxseed meal, and acacia fibre. Prebiotics sustain and nourish good gut bacteria and allow them to produce healing compounds like short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs). SCFAs improve the integrity of the gut wall, play a role in metabolic processes, support brain health, and lower inflammation.

Exercise Regularly

Believe it or not, moving your body helps to improve the motility of your gut and may have a positive influence on the composition of your gut microbiome. A 2014 study showed athletes had a larger variety of gut flora than nonathletes. A simple 20-30-minute walk daily is all it takes to create a difference.

Healthy Sleep Patterns

Regular good-quality sleep can improve mood, cognition, and gut health. An animal study in mice showed that irregular sleep habits and disturbed sleep had negative outcomes for the gut flora, which in turn increased the risk of inflammatory conditions. When you sleep your body detoxes, repairs cells, restores energy, and releases molecules like hormones and proteins, among other important functions. When you get a poor night’s sleep you will often make poor food choices the next day and this impacts your gut microbiome, particularly if it happens regularly. Lack of sleep also increases stress hormones which affect the health of the gut and its microbiome. Studies have also shown that there is a connection between a lack of melatonin and GERD.