The Importance of Gut Health
The Microbiome
The Microbiome (also commonly known as your biome or flora) is a huge colony of bacteria in our intestines, especially the large intestines. And when we say huge, we mean it – there are approximately 100 trillion good bacteria in your gut!
Your microbiome is as diverse as the Amazon rainforest, with 1000 types of species and 7000-9000 types of strains! In this ‘jungle’ of microbes, there are good and bad bacteria present, but a healthy microbiome will be good bacteria dominant.
Our health is incredibly dependant on the life and vibrancy of our ‘rainforest’. These good bacteria provide many vital benefits. These include extracting energy, absorbing water and nutrients from the food we eat and then removing any unwanted waste.
Good bacteria wards off infection and helps to stimulate and regulate immune cells in the gut, thus preventing bad bacteria from colonizing and taking over.
Your microbiome is also involved in many important processes that extend beyond your gut, including your metabolism, body weight, and immune regulation, as well as your brain functions and mental health.
Gut-Brain Axis
Have you ever had a ‘gut feeling’? Well, our microbiome is involved in almost every process in the body and even functions like a brain.
The intestines and the brain communicate to each other and are physically linked through the vagus nerve, neurotransmitters and nervous system. They transform information, from food to feelings and vice versa. Your gut literally has an emotional/cognitive connection to the brain, meaning that your ‘gut feeling’ may have just been real!
The microbiome has even been proven to fully function without being connected to the brain, suggesting that our intestines have a mind of their own!
So, as you can probably see, the microbiome is very important and if compromised, can negatively affect many systems in the body. Our microbiome is the centre point of our immune system, meaning a disturbance can cause subtle immune reaction around the body, which if prolonged, can affect brain health. It is vital that we maintain a rich, diverse and thriving microbiome.
Achieving a Happy Gut
When gut flora becomes imbalanced it can lead to a number of unpleasant symptoms, including bloating, abdominal pains, irregular bowel movements and a feeling of ‘heaviness’ after eating. An unhappy gut can also result in increased risk of intestinal diseases and factors such stress, poor sleep, antibiotic misuse, illness, aging, travelling abroad. And a diet rich in refined carbs (white bread, white pasta, sugar etc) can disrupt your all-important gut. Therefore, we need to maintain a happy and healthy gut that functions to its maximum potential.
You can support your gut bacteria in many ways:
- Optimize fibre intake
- Consume plenty of prebiotics
- Consume plenty of probiotics
Optimizing Fibre Intake
Modern lifestyles and diets can impact gut health and gut-brain relationship. Many of us are still ignoring our fibre intake, despite the fact that this nutrient has been linked to fending off disease and reducing a range of conditions. Fibre is vital to our well-being but does more than contributing to weight loss and reducing the risk of disease.
In fact, losing out on fibre every day may significantly change the way your gut functions. It could even make a difference between weight loss or none, and longer life or not.
Consuming a fibre rich diet will result in a biome packed with diverse populations of good bacteria.
We often remember to eat our fruits and vegetables, but legumes (chickpeas, lentils, peas etc) are also a great source of fibre. Be sure to explore the world of whole grains too. These are in the likes of rye, whole oats, whole wheat, bulgar, quinoa and many more! There are so many delicious sources of fiber, so there’s really no excuse to not reach your recommended intake!
Probiotics
Probiotics are the ‘live’ bacteria found in the microbiome. As we now know, they’re essential to gut and overall health.
Probiotic foods (most commonly fermented foods) include: yoghurt, kimchi, kombucha, sauerkraut, tempeh, miso and pickles.
As delicious and nutritious as these probiotic-packed foods are, fermented foods can be difficult to access, expensive and time consuming to make. If you struggle to eat these foods daily or wish to maintain a favourable amount of friendly bacteria in your digestive tract, we recommend taking a probiotic supplement.
Prebiotics
Essentially, prebiotics serve as ‘food’ for our good bacteria, which means that probiotics can’t survive without prebiotics.
Health is not only dependant on feeding our cells, but other microorganisms too. Prebiotic foods include: whole grains, seeds, beans, lentils, chickpeas, cocoa extracts, green tea extracts, red wine extracts, apples, bananas, asparagus, honey and much more.
Future strategies to target diseases, including brain health, may include feeding our gut microbiomes!
Why Naturavits Probiotic Complex?
Naturavits Probiotic Complex is a high strength probiotic supplement containing 6 strains of probiotics for ultimate flora support. Each capsule contains a guaranteed 5 billion viable organisms. Designed for optimal bacterial delivery, our special targeted release capsules protect from harsh stomach acids. Naturavits Probiotic Complex supports digestive function and healthy bacteria balance.
The capsules used in Naturavits Probiotic Complex are an innovative hypromellose (HPMC) formulation, specifically designed to ensure optimal delivery for acid-sensitive products. Using plant-based ingredients, our targeted release probiotic capsules provide built in acid resistance without the need for film coatings. This ensures delayed stability of the bacteria and improves absorption without exposure to solvents used in enteric coating.
The 6 probiotic strains can colonise multiple locations within the body at one time. There are literally thousands of different species of good bacteria living in our digestive system, meaning a multi-strain formula will work in more areas and provide better protection against a wider scope of harmful micro-organisms. Take care of your microbiome and get your Probiotics here!
NaturaVits Probiotics are suitable for Vegetarians and Vegans, are Kosher and Halal friendly and are UK Manufactured to GMP and ISO 9001 Quality Assurance for consistent quality.