Health Hacker: How better gut health impacts overall wellbeing

The true power of the gut has an effect on all aspects of our overall wellbeing, including mental health, our immune system, the ability to fight infections, and so much more. Health Hacker Adam MacDougall reveals how to improve your gut health.

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We’ve credited our guts for so many things over the years. We go on gut feel, tough people show plenty of guts, if you’re no good with a secret you will spill your guts, cowards are gutless — you can even have someone’s guts for garters.

But not matter how many things we’ve claimed our guts can do over the decades, it turns out we’ve still been underselling what scientists now refer to as the body’s second brain. Because these days, we know that our guts are good for so much more than bravery, or the lack of it.

It’s only over the past couple of years that we’ve begun really understanding the true power of the gut when it comes to just about all aspects of our overall wellbeing, be it our mental health, our immune system, our ability to fight infections, and so much more.

Looking after your gut can impact your overall health.

“Gut health is so important. Before, we were relying on medications and basically putting bandaids on problems, but we now feel empowered to take control of our bodies by eating well, feeding our gut microbiome, and actually getting control over these diseases. It’s a new and exciting field,” University of Newcastle molecular nutritionist, Dr Emma Beckett told Health Hacker.

“We are learning so much more about it. We have so many more methods of measuring what’s going in the gut, and how it relates to the food we eat, and our health.”

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Before we go on, let’s cover off some of the big buzz words. Just what is a microbiome, a probiotic and a prebiotic?

“The gut microbiome is all the microorganisms — that’s bacteria, viruses, fungus, all sorts of weird and wonderful things — that live inside our gut,” Dr Beckett says.

“The probiotics are the good bacteria — the bacteria that we want to add in. And then the prebiotics are that bacteria’s food — what they eat in order to flourish. And we provide both by what we eat.”

You might think it’s just the food you eat that controls the health of your gut, and it definitely does but there are all sorts of external factors that play a role, too.

What we eat improves our gut health.

From a lack of sleep or not enough exercise, or feeling stressed or strung-out, almost everything we do impacts the delicate balance of our gut. But before you start feeling like it’s all too much work, Dr Beckett has a simple tip to make sure you’re doing right by your gut microbiome every day.

“If you’re stressed, that can upset your gut health. Not sleeping well has a knock-on effect. But those are things we sometimes can’t control in our lives,” Dr Beckett says.

“What we can control is our diet, so getting all the right fruits and vegetables and plant-based foods. But you don’t need it to be expensive, you don’t need it to go on Instagram, you don’t need it to be sexy.

“My simple trick to making sure I get everything for my gut every day is to do it at breakfast. Start the day with a high-fibre breakfast, paired with yoghurt, for the probiotics, and fruit, for more fibre, and a little honey, and you’ve literally go everything you need for daily gut health at breakfast.”

FAST FACTS ON ... BETTER GUT HEALTH

With accredited dietitian Nicole Dynan

1. Mix it up

“We’ve learned that if we feed our gut bacteria well, particularly with foods high in fibre like fruits, vegetables and legumes, then we can help prebiotics proliferate,” Nicole says.

“And if we’re eating a wide variety of these foods, then we’re feeding a wide variety to that healthy bacteria. The more diverse the bugs in our guts, the healthier we are.”

2. Ditch the diets

“If we go on fad diets and cut out entire food groups, or just focus on one food group, we do run the risk of shrinking the diversity of our microbiome,” Nicole says.

“So we want to make sure we eat a broad range of foods so we can really support it, in addition to other important things like sleep, exercise and hydration.”

3. Carbs are not the enemy

“There has been a lot of discussion over the years about people cutting out carbohydrates to control their weight, but the evidence really isn’t there,” Nicole says.

“And when we do that, we run the risk of not being able to feed our microbiome well. I would include wholegrains in any diet.

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Health Hacker Adam MacDougall.

Adam MacDougall is the creator of The Man Shake. A new, healthy, weight loss shake that is low in sugar, full of protein, fibre, vitamins and minerals that you can have on the run and leaves you feeling full.

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Originally published as Health Hacker: How better gut health impacts overall wellbeing