How Improving Your Gut Biome Can Bolster Your Health

A healthy gut is crucial for preventing disease, staying energized, and living a vibrant life. Keeping your gut biome balanced is key to reaping the many benefits that intestinal bacteria provide.

Before you can improve your gut, you need to know if it’s imbalanced and, if so, the next best step for your health needs. Sirisat Khalsa, MD, at Clarity Medical Group, specializes in identifying problems and working with each person to develop a gut biome optimization plan.

Take a few moments to learn about the gut biome and its impact on your overall health.

Gut biome explained

The gut biome includes trillions of microorganisms and thousands of different types of bacteria that are living in your digestive tract. The small intestine has significantly fewer microbes than the large intestine (colon), but both are home to good and bad bacteria.

Harmful bacteria release toxins and cause damaging inflammation and health problems. Good bacteria keep bad bacteria under control while supporting your overall health.

When the number of good bacteria declines — a problem caused by a poor diet, infections, antibiotics, and other medications — you have an imbalanced gut that can cause many issues, from diarrhea and gas to heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and obesity.

How the gut biome affects your health

Improving your biome bolsters your health by ensuring that you have the good bacteria needed to fill their many essential roles, including:

• Digesting nutrients
• Fermenting non-digestible fiber
• Producing short-chain fatty acids
• Strengthening the immune system
• Protecting you from disease-causing microbes
• Regulating fat storage and metabolism
• Influencing your response to hunger hormones
• Producing B vitamins and vitamin K
• Breaking down toxins
• Producing serotonin

Let’s take a closer look at three specific benefits:

1. Supporting the immune system

The gut biome communicates with immune cells, allowing good bacteria to promote your health by strengthening the immune response. Your gut regulates inflammation, influences the development and function of immune cells that fight disease, and stimulates cells that fight cancer.

2. Producing short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs)

When bacteria break down (ferment) dietary fiber, they produce SCFAs, the primary source of nutrition for intestinal cells. These fatty acids keep the intestinal wall healthy, reduce the number of bad bacteria, and fight intestinal diseases like ulcerative colitis and colon cancer.

SCFAs also support body-wide health. For example, they improve absorption of dietary minerals, suppress damaging inflammation, and help prevent type 2 diabetes.

3. Synthesizing serotonin

Your gut produces 95% of the body’s serotonin, a biochemical that carries messages between nerves. In your gut, serotonin speeds digestion, helps remove toxins and irritating substances, and reduces your appetite.

Though serotonin synthesized in your gut doesn’t travel to your brain, it activates nerves that communicate with the brain and affect brain chemicals. That’s how the biome can directly influence your mood and how an imbalanced gut can lead to issues like depression and anxiety.

Improving your gut biome

Each person has a unique biome with varying types of bacteria. To establish a gut biome optimization plan, we begin by running advanced diagnostic tests to assess your gut biome and digestive health. Then, we create a personalized treatment approach to restore balance and optimize good bacteria.

Though your treatment may include one of several possible therapies, one of the best ways to balance gut bacteria is with dietary changes, ensuring good bacteria get the food they need to thrive.

When to seek help for your gut

It’s not always easy to know when your gut bacteria are imbalanced, but here are a few guidelines.

There’s a good chance you need to improve your gut health if you recently took antibiotics. Additionally, people with irritable bowel syndrome or an autoimmune disease, such as rheumatoid arthritis or thyroid disease, often have gut problems.

A few signs you may need gut optimization include:

• Constipation
• Diarrhea
• Heartburn
• Bloating
• Stomach pain
• Skin rashes
• Difficulty sleeping
• Sugar cravings
• Food intolerances

Don’t hesitate to contact Clarity Medical Group in Sherman Oaks, California, if you have any questions or concerns about your gut health. We target the root cause of your symptoms and help restore your well-being.