Gut Health Part III: Healing the Gut

Healing the gut takes some time, it unfortunately doesn't happen over night.  On the bright side, it's not too complicated to figure out how to start the healing process.  It does take discipline to commit yourself to a healthier eating program, supplementation, and some lifestyle changes.  There are simply 4 R's to follow:

Remove
Here is where we begin.  This is truly the most important among the 4 R's.  As we discussed in the past two posts, there are many factors that play a role in disrupting gut health.  Those main sources being stress, unhealthy food and drink choices, and chemicals from medications. 

• Stress: Often times people immediately think and say, "this is my life and I can't change the amount of stress I live with."  In some cases this may be true, we do understand this along with you.  My question to those people is this, "What do you do for YOURSELF that helps relieve or manage your stress?"  You may have a stressful job, personal stressors, etc.  As a mother of three very active kids, I understand feeling like I need an extra 3+ hours a day to try and fit everything in for everyone else and make some me time.  You are not alone in the stress department my friend.  The key to decreasing the volume of stress you feel, is to find an outlet for yourself that you enjoy, and can allow yourself some freedom from those stresses.  Yes, it takes a little planning on your part.  For example; I enjoy working out and I have used working out as my outlet since I was about 13 years old.  It's a healthy stress relief for everyone, because it not only gets your blood flowing but it also releases endorphins that naturally make you feel better.  Let's be real here, when you are trying to quick bust out a 10 minute or less mile, grinding up a quick bike ride, or pushing around some heavy weight, those stressors are taking a back burner to the art of thinking about your workout.  Think about this for a moment...an average power-walk or jog only takes 10-15 minutes of your day.  How about instead of going out to lunch every day, you prepack a healthy lunch, use the first 20 minutes of your lunch break to take a walk/run, and then eat your lunch.  Maybe you could drive to pick up your kids 20-30 minutes early before they get out of school and take a run/walk/bike ride from their school and back to pick them up.  Like I said, it does take a little pre-planning, but you would be surprised what you can squeeze into your schedule if you make the effort.   Another tid-bit, perhaps you would like to take an art class, cooking class, men's group, bible study group, etc, but you can't imagine breaking away from your family for a couple of hours once a week or month because they "need" you for dinner, homework, taxiing, whatever.  Here's the deal, you PLAN AHEAD, cook a meal the day before and make enough that there are leftovers for the evening that you are out.  Make your children finish their homework and bathe early, and make carpool arrangements for your kids.  Gosh parents, don't ever hesitate to ask for help with kid pickups and drop offs if you need it.  Way more often than not, parents are totally willing to help here and there, because there will certainly be a time that they need help and you are more than willing to return the favor.  Anyway, what I am getting at is this, take some ME time and learn to manage your stress.  Stress is toxic to our health.
• Unhealthy Foods and Drinks.  It has become too easy to grab junk food loaded with unhealthy chemicals, not to mention have zero health benefits to our bodies.  A quote I mentioned in an earlier blog is spot on, "we as Americans are the most obese but malnourished people than any other country."  Let that sink in again and understand that what we are eating is literally JUNK.  Thankfully we are becoming more educated about our nutrition and what we eat, but that doesn't mean we are following that knowledge for ourselves and our families.  One of the fun quotes I like to share, that is not my own, when someone asks about "lowfat', "non-fat", or "sugarfree" immediately think chemical s*^tstorm.  Those are the most toxic next to meat preservatives and the other numerous chemical additives.  I could go on and on with this topic for hours but I won't here.  Just try to read labels and watch out for un-necessary additives.  Stick with whole foods, meals and snacks loaded with fruits and veggies, and unprocessed meat products.  Also, the removal of gluten, dairy, refined sugars, and alcohol especially while you are trying to take those first steps in healing your gut.  Any food item that you are sensitive to, eliminate it to give your gut time to heal.
• Medications (unless medically necessary to live):  With this you must be very careful and consult with your prescribing physician before eliminated a medication. Understandably, not all medications can be removed.  You might be surprised though to learn about what you are able to discontinue taking if you change your lifestyle.  A healthy diet and weight loss program may take the place of the blood pressure and cholesterol drugs you are taking, possibly even the type II diabetic meds.  With the removal of unhealthy foods or foods that you are sensitive to increases the possibility of removing meds that you take for allergies and inflammation.  Look for alternatives when it comes to over the counter meds.  There are so many supplements that are all natural and so much more healthy to take than the slew of chemicals in medications. Boswellia for example, aka frankincense in the essential oil world, has been proven to be a more potent anti inflammatory treatment then NSAID's without any harmful chemicals.  Like I said, don't just quite taking a prescribed med without consulting the prescribing physician.  Ask that physician first, research alternatives, and make lifestyle changes to help remove these toxins.

Replace
How do we replace?  We replace the everyday repetitive stress with time management and spending some ME time to decrease/manage the stress. Next, replace the fast food with healthy foods prepared at home (again pre-plan just a little). Replace the fake processed foods and snacks with healthy fruits, veggies, nuts, etc.  Read labels and avoid poor food choices.  Also replace the food sources that are highly inflammatory with alternatives. With the Gluten free trend, there are MANY options now available to help you avoid gluten.  Same goes for dairy alternatives as well as eggs and nuts.  As I mentioned just above, replace some of the medications with all natural supplements, whole foods, and lifestyle changes.  The key here is to replace unhealthy stressors in your gut to foods that promote healing.

Repair
After you have made the commitment to remove and replace factors in your diet and lifestyle that are unhealthy for your gut, the next step is to repair the damage.  Repairing the gut wall is a process.  Thankfully the human body is amazingly resilient and SMART!  This process can only happen if the stressors are all removed.  It is a delicate process that involves healing the gut barrier wall, the villi, and the mucosal layer.  Remember from the last blog, 70-80% of our immune system cells live within the gut. 

• The first step I recommend personally is fasting.  I'm not speaking in terms of weight-loss fasting.  Fasting allows the gut time to rest and repair.  Since each patients is different, a variety of fasting protocols can be used.  A one day water fast, or maybe a 16-8 hour fast (sixteen hours fasted/8hours eating per day). 
• Elimination diet as mentioned above, which again is eliminating any foods that you know you are sensitive to and also the most common foods others are sensitive to that you may not even be aware of your sensitivity to yet.
• Detoxification Protocol of 7-28 days that helps cleanse the body of the toxin burden.  We carry a couple of different detox kits in our office and hopefully online in our store soon.

Rebalance
The last step is to re-balance the GI system.  While whole foods are imperative to providing nutrition for your GI health, they are typically not enough in the beginning when we are re-balancing the GI tract.  The damage to the gut lining makes it difficult to utilize all of the nutrients we digest, especially if the foods are not superior quality. At this phase, reestablishing the micro-flora is paramount through probiotic support.  Take a peek at the picture below

Since starting to research this amazingly indepth topic on Gut Health, I have spent a lot of quality time speaking with our supplement companies to see what they officer to patients for gut health and inflammatory healing, and immune support.  I was amazed at the amount of literature they were able to produce on this well studied topic.  We are excited to have one of our favorite supplement reps in town next week, February 13th, to speak with not just us but also our patients and community about this interesting topic.  There is so much to learn about gut health and how it's related to your overall well being.  If you would like to hear more about the supplements we offer in the office for detoxification, gut repair supplements, and probiotics, please send me an email and I would be happy to help.