There are 10 times as many bacterial cells than human cells in our bodies and a large percentage of those live in our gut. Over the last few years we have come to realise that everything to do with our health is as much about our microbes as it is about us, yet there are things that we expose ourselves to that destroy our gut health every day. A gut with a greater variety of bacteria is a healthy one, but the following five points are things that we do every day that lowers the variety of gut bacteria, and in turn, hurt our overall health;
Alcohol
Alcohol is usually metabolised in the liver. By drinking too much alcohol, your liver will become strained. If this happens, it affects the effectiveness of the digestive system, whilst also damaging the digestive tract.
Processed Foods
To put it simply, overeating of high-processed foods results in a less diverse gut as it only feeds the bacteria in the first part of the gastrointestinal tract. Fresh, high fibre food is needed to improve the amount of good bacteria in your gut.
Smoking
Nicotine and all of those tars are certainly bad for your lungs but the small amounts you swallow also kill off the bacteria in your gut – after all nicotine is what tobacco uses to kill potential invaders.
Antibiotics
When these drugs are taken, they are not particular when it comes to which bugs and bacteria are killed. While it is great that they get rid of disease, they kill both bad and good bacteria indiscriminately. It is important to have foods that complement your gut and improve gut health after taking antibiotics.
Lack of sleep and stress
Sleep is the time where your body re-energises for the next day. Stress on the other hand, results in inflammation and negative feedback to the gut. It is important to our health that we get enough sleep and take the time to relieve our stress. Having less than enough sleep at night deprives us of the optimum sleep cycle to repair the gut tissue.
But there are things that you can do to help even if you are guilty of these things. By feeding your gut with good (prebiotic) foods you can boost the good bacteria and improve gut health. This is where NutriKane comes in! NutriKane is a broad spectrum prebiotic that is essential to feed different types of good bacteria in the gut. This not only supplies us with essential nutrition, but also increases the types of microbiota in the gut. NutriKane also has insoluble fibre that stimulates the full length of the gastrointestinal tract.
