BUGS IN YOUR BELLY – THE KEY TO DIGESTIVE HEALTH AND WELLBEING
>Health advice from Dr Damian Kristof.
Every single day trillions of bugs live and have a party in your digestive system. In fact, there may be more bacteria and good bugs in your gut than there are cells in your entire body. What’s incredible about this is that most of us give very little attention to the food we feed these bacteria and bugs!
Bugs in your gut live off the digested material from the food you eat. They thrive in a healthy environment and they die and struggle in an unhealthy or acidic environment. The bugs in our gut elicit control over a number of functions in the body including the immune system and are an integral part of the digestion of food.
There are a number of ways that you can be alerted to your gut health and the wellbeing of your gut bugs.
- Do you pass much wind?
- Do you burp much?
- Do you have acid reflux?
- Are you constipated?
- Do you have loose bowel motions more than formed motions?
- Is your bowel transit time efficient?
- Have you checked out our poo chart? Where do you SIT? A number 4 is best.
If you burp or pass lots of wind (fart) you have poor digestion. If your wind smells and you have bad breath you really need to look at your food and digestive health. If you have acid reflux, you most likely don’t have enough good gastric acid in your tummy . A glass of lemon juice in water every day will help.
Are you constipated? If so, drink more water.
If you have loose bowel – eat better quality food – consume more wholefoods and cut processed foods out of your diet. Check your transit time by doing the “sesame seed challenge”. You should see seeds in 12 hours. Any significant variance in time would indicate that your digestive system needs some improvement.
For all of these problems, starting your day healthily is the best thing that you can do. Kick off your day with unprocessed cereals and all natural foods. I have either WBC with yoghurt, rice milk and blue berries or poached eggs, spinach, avocado and sprouted mung beans.
