More Ways to Improve Gut Health
In this article, I will share with you more ways to improve gut health by avoiding things that can be health detriments. Even though proper nutrition is essential and should be the main focus, however, there are other ways to improve gut health by avoiding them as much as possible and using them unless it is a life-threatening situation or something you feel an emergency thing to do.
Ways to Improve Gut Health - pharmaceutical Drugs Usage
One of the biggest assaults to your gut flora is the usage of antibiotics since they kill off the pathogenic and beneficial bacteria indiscriminately.
There is no doubt that antibiotic medications have saved many lives over the decades since they were made in mass productions and used for emergencies or as a last resort. However, the frequent use of antibiotics is where the problem lies because the damage becomes deeper and deeper.
Many of the antibiotic medications are not used for life-saving causes but are used for minor health conditions where the harm outweighs the benefit.
In a healthy individual, there is a diverse community of gut flora such as viruses, archaea, bacteria, protozoa, worms, and other microbes still being discovered and these different antibiotics harm many of these beneficial bacteria. As Dr. Natasha explains in Gut and Psychology Syndrome, the gut flora is a highly organized community where they plant, eat, harvest, and control each other so no specific microbe gets out of control.
The harmonious environment of this microbial community becomes significantly disrupted when a person takes antibiotics that kill beneficial bacteria but leave other microbes such as viruses, worms, and fungi (ex., Candida albicans) untouched. Therefore, these unharmed microbes from antibiotics start to outnumber the beneficial bacteria, get out of control and balance, leading to gut dysbiosis. From this point, if gut dysbiosis becomes consistent and chronic this will lead to all kinds of chronic diseases that are related to a damaged gut.
How to Help Gut Health Improve - Be Aware of Other Prescriptions
Contraceptives, steroids, and other medications are similar to antibiotics regarding their damaging effects on the gut flora so just be aware of the negative effects that these prescribed medications can do.
Improve Your Gut Health by Avoiding Antibiotics in Industrial Foods
The industrial food system produces meat, eggs, beans, vegetables, fruits, and grain that most, if not all, are treated with antibiotics to increase production and profitability.
In our modern time, it is very challenging to keep our gut health optimal because antibiotics are introduced to us directly as medication and indirectly through industrial foods. These are just some suggestions on how you can improve your gut health:
- Always think of preventive measures before you put yourself in a “no way out” situation. So eating quality, whole foods is your best medicine and preventive strategy.
- Use antibiotics only for urgent and health-threatening conditions. The same thing goes for other medications, don’t take them lightly and use them only as a last resort and for a short time.
- Grow some of your veggies if possible. Buy only organic foods that are free of hormones and antibiotics. There are plenty of local farms that you can visit and see for yourself how they take care of their animals. That way you build a trustful relationship. These local farmers need us and we need them equally.
