Your Gut Brain Rules Your Health And Emotions!

Mercola

Did you know that your gut forms 80% of your immune system?  This is why you need to guard it well!

This is the single most important post that I have ever blogged!  Read this carefully....because it will save your life if you understand and apply it!  A great friend and family Doctor educated me on this around 2013, so protecting my gut health has become important for me.  It has made a tremendous difference to my health and immunity!

The last year has been tough, as I have watched my brother fight a serious immune virus!  With all the pharmaceutical treatment he has had to endure, I can see how this has affected his gut health and immunity further.  I wasn't able to assist him as much as I wanted to with regards to nutrition, as I have had to respect his choices as hard as it may be.  So....here goes:

Did you know that your gut is called your 'second brain'?

No?  How....?

"Numerous studies have shown that your gastrointestinal system acts as your second brain.  In fact, your second brain originated from the same type of tissue as your brain.

During fetal development, one part of the tissue transforms into your central nervous system (brain), while the other develops into your enteric nervous system (gut). These two nervous systems are connected by the vagus nerve, the tenth cranial nerve that runs from your brain stem down to your abdomen. *The vagus nerve acts as the Mind/Body connection, and it is the cabling behind your heart's emotions and gut instincts!

Your gut has the ability to impact your mind, mood, and behavior, as it contains high concentrations of serotonin, a hormone that is linked to mood regulation." ~ Dr Joseph Mercola

There is a bidirectional relationship (two-way communication), between the gut (enteric nervous system), and brain (central nervous system).  The brain signals and commands the gut to carry out vital functions, and vice versa.

What Causes Gut Inflammation?

Your gut homes trillions of microorganisms, “good bacteria”, that influence numerous bodily functions, including mood. Studies reveal that the probiotic Lactobacillus rhamnosus helps to lower the stress-induced hormone corticosterone, this reduces anxiety and depression-associated behavior.

You compromise the balance of good and bad bacteria in your digestive tract by eating a diet high in processed food, sweetened beverages, or sugar-laden products; this further affects your mental health, because this allows harmful bacteria and yeast to thrive.  When you eat, you feed this abnormal flora in the gut sending toxins throughout the body.  These toxins travel to the brain and latch onto different brain structures causing various symptoms.

Sugar and processed foods cause leaky gut and trigger chemical reactions in the body promoting chronic inflammation.  This leads to excessive insulin release, resulting in hypoglycemia, causing your brain to produce high glutamate levels that may trigger depression, agitation, anger, anxiety, panic attacks, and an increased suicide.

A toxic gut = a toxic brain!

Studies have shown that depression is often diagnosed alongside gut inflammation and autoimmune diseases.  Chronic inflammation is also linked to cardiovascular problems, neurodegenerative disorders, type 2 diabetes, and cancer.   Thus, researchers report that depression may be a neuropsychiatric problem caused by chronic inflammation.

This proves that inflammation is linked to depression, and is an underlying cause of numerous health problems.

How gut flora impacts health?

In healthy individuals with normal gut flora, you'll find about 500 different species of disease-causing, bad bacteria and fungi right along with good, beneficial bacteria. As long as the good bacteria reign, they'll keep the bad ones from harming you.

Things that can wipe out your beneficial bacteria and disturb your gut flora include - stress, infections, antibiotics, poor diet, and prescription drugs such as contraceptive pills and steroids.

Dysbiosis is the condition that results when gut flora becomes damaged. Pathogenic bacteria, viruses, yeast and fungi flourish and grow out of control, often leading to a rise in allergies and autoimmune conditions.

Where does gut flora come from? 

From mom...

When a baby goes through the birth canal, he or she swallows the first mouthfuls of bacteria and that becomes the baby's gut flora.

Before the use of antibiotics and birth control pills, most women had normal, healthy vaginal flora and that is what they passed on to their children.  Today, contraceptive pills, have a particularly devastating effect on gut health.

Dr. Campbell-McBride, who holds a degree in Medicine and Postgraduate degrees in both Neurology and Nutrition, points out: 

"Abnormal gut flora may not always be the mother's fault. There are times when a woman's flora may be perfectly healthy, but the man's gut flora is abnormal. During intercourse, men share their bodily flora with women and that can have an impact on their babies' gut flora."

Newborns depend upon healthy gut flora for immune development, without this the baby becomes immuno-compromised.  When the immune system is not working well, the mucus membranes start overproducing mucus, this leads to frequent ear and chest infections.  A vicious cycle of infection, and re-infection, with antibiotic use is devastating on the immune system, as antibiotics wipe out beneficial bacteria!

Dr. Campbell-McBride believes the following are connected to abnormalities in gut flora - multiple sclerosis, chronic fatigue syndrome, lupus, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, and type 1 diabetes.

Curing Depression by Addressing Gut Inflammation...

Dr Mercola says to reduce sugar consumption to less than 25 grams per day to keep inflammation at bay, treat depressive symptoms, and promote good bacteria balance in your gut.  The healthiest and safest option would be to replace sugar consumption with raw unrefined honey.

Avoid wheat, pasteurized dairy, and processed foods.

Two other ways to optimize your gut flora:

Increase your consumption of fermented foods by eating traditionally made, unpasteurized foods, as pasteurization kills the food’s beneficial compounds.  See the links to these probiotics on my blog:

~ Pickled fermentations of cabbages, turnips, eggplants, cucumbers, squash, and carrots
~ Fermented, organic grass-fed milk, like kefir

*Read the book, Gut and Psychology Syndrome by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride.  Dr Campbell-McBride runs the Cambridge Nutrition Clinic in the UK where she has become recognized as one of the world's leading experts in treating children and adults with learning disabilities and other mental disorders, as well as children and adults with digestive and immune disorders.*








Sources:  drmercola.com, products.mercola.com







#gut #health #microbiome