Your gut affects your overall health. Taking care of it and ensuring that the balance between good and bad bacteria is maintained will improve your quality of life and prevent the onset of several diseases.
On the other hand, poor gut health leads to severe sickness, as part of your immune system depends on what you eat. Thus, bad gut health translates into a bad immune system, which causes poor protection from diseases.
Improving your gut health is one of the most important steps to leading a healthier and fuller life. Here are a few tips to help you get started.
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Beware of carcinogens
Recently, several carcinogens have been discovered to cause cancers in the abdomen. Avoiding exposure to them can reduce your chances of developing this deadly disease and keep your gut and stomach healthy.
Processed meats like sausages and beef jerky, red meat, and alcohol consumption are all risk factors that impair stomach function and lead to malignancy.
Smoking tobacco and eating preserved foods like salted fish further increase the risk.
Besides your diet, your environment can also cause abdominal cancer, resulting in poor gut health.
Peritoneal mesothelioma is fatal cancer that develops in the lining of the peritoneum, a membrane enveloping the abdominal cavity and its contents, including the stomach.
It causes abdominal pain and fluid build-up, along with bloating, constipation, nausea, and weight loss. The cancer is caused by exposure to asbestos, and construction site workers, industrial workers, and veterans are often exposed to it.
Moreover, exposed people can even carry asbestos fibers home on clothing, skin, and hair and put their families at risk.
Thus, it is essential for blue-collar workers handling asbestos to wear PPE and protect themselves from inhaling or ingesting this harmful carcinogen.
Eat high-fiber foods
Fiber improves your gut motility and helps in treating constipation. It reduces your risk of developing hemorrhoids and aids in controlling blood sugar levels by slowing its absorption in the gut.
Moreover, high-fiber foods are more filling and quickly satiate hunger. Thus, include these foods in your diet if you are trying to lose weight and get more fit.
The fiber in foods is of two types. Soluble fiber is water-soluble and lowers the level of cholesterol and glucose in the blood. Common food containing this fiber include apples, beans, and oats.
The second type is insoluble fiber which normalizes bowel movements and treats constipation. It includes vegetables like cauliflower and potatoes and whole-wheat flour.
Reduce sugar in your diet
Consuming foods and drinks with lots of sugar has obvious health risks. It increases blood pressure and causes weight gain and diabetes.
Studies have also linked high sugar intake to cancers of the esophagus and prostate.
You do not have to cut out the sweet flavor of sugar from your life for good. All you have to do is reduce your refined sugar intake and replace it with natural sweeteners like jaggery and honey.
This helps reduce flatulence and stomach bloating caused by eating refined sugar.
Use probiotics
We have all seen numerous ads for probiotics on our TVs and phones.
While you may think this is yet another scam for the health industry to fool you into spending money, you’ll be surprised at its benefits collected from research and studies.
Probiotics are combinations of live gut-healthy bacteria and natural yeasts in your body. These organisms promote gut health by helping your body in digesting food.
They also help reduce the number of harmful bacteria in your gut and keep them from making you sick and bloated.
Fortunately, several naturally made probiotics work wonders for gut health. Thus, you do not need to invest in expensive supplements.
All you need is some curd and yogurt or buttermilk, which are perfect probiotics.
Drink more water
Water is a major component of your body and plays a vital role in maintaining your health. Every metabolic process needs adequate water, and dehydration can severely impair digestive function.
It may even lead to constant constipation and stomach pain. Additionally, constipation can lead to bladder prolapse and hemorrhoids.
The risk of both these diseases can be decreased by simply increasing your water intake.
Unfortunately, most people struggle to drink the recommended eight glasses of water daily. Here are a few tips to help you drink more of it and ensure your gut remains healthy.
- Set daily goals and use reminders on your phone to ensure you can meet them.
- Increase your intake of fruits and vegetables with high water content, like cucumbers, apples, watermelons, and tomatoes.
- Order a bottle of water at restaurants instead of sugary drinks.
- Flavor your water with a slice of lemon, strawberry, or kiwi to make it taste delicious.
Reduce stress
You may have experienced stomach bloating and unease when you are under stress. This is because anxiety and stress can affect digestion.
Stress slows digestion in most people, which causes pain, bloating, and constipation. On the other hand, it speeds it up for some people and causes diarrhea.
Stress can also worsen stomach conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome and ulcers.
A solution to fix stomach issues caused by stress is to not eat during times of worry. You should also learn how to manage stress better through breathing exercises, peer support, and therapy.
Stop smoking
Smoking harms the digestive tract in various ways. It causes heartburn by weakening the oesophageal sphincter that prevents stomach acids from flowing backward into it.
It also worsens liver disease. The liver typically filters out toxins from the blood. However, smoking affects its ability to perform this function and worsens livers that are already damaged.
Hence, it is essential to quit smoking to maintain gut health and live an overall healthy life. It can be hard to quit this addiction yourself. However, with help and support, you can leave this bad habit behind.
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Eat less saturated fats
Fat takes a lot of time to digest. Thus, it slows digestion and gut motility, leading to flatulence and bloating. Since food will stay longer in the stomach, the risk of reflux of gastric contents also increases.
Moreover, excessive fat in your diet will also lead to diarrhea as it triggers an overproduction of liquid by the colon.
Cutting out saturated fats is the best thing you can do for your gut health. However, you can still have unsaturated fats in moderate quantities as these are considerably healthier.
Conclusion
A few simple lifestyle changes are sufficient to improve your gut health and prevent bloating, flatulence, and frequent changes in bowel habits.
Although it may seem a little hard to leave behind old unhealthy habits, the right motivation and willpower will help you through the difficult part until making healthier choices doesn’t feel like a burden anymore.
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