Everyone has digestive problems or other gastrointestinal problem from time to time that can range from embarrassing gas to uncomfortable heartburn and even some fatal health problems. Hey, if you have any don’t worry. Here, we are with the ultimate cure, top five best strategies, for Gastrointestinal problems and the good thing is its less about taking ultra-precaution regarding foods.
Before beginning with those evidence based effective strategies for tackling gastrointestinal problems, first lets know the range of problems that can be due to intestine related issues. Constipation, Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), Hemorrhoids, Anal fissures, Anal fistula, Colitis, Colon polyps and cancer are common categories of gastrointestinal problems. However, impacts of these problems are not only limited to GI tract. They play role in worsening diseases/ conditions of other systems as well.
There is a common saying that ‘GI tract is known as second brain of the body’
Well, problems in GI tract can have impact on your overall being including your mental health. Sometimes you are unable to overcome such problems completely and in long run it destroys your health and also compromises your immune functions. Such manifestations are often due to poor absorption of foods or increased toxicity in your body.
Do you wonder what is the main causes of this evil? Well, you will have read many answers from different sources that often range from food habits, life style to medications. Well, that’s true, these are major reasons. However the most evil cause of this demon is sugar and artificial sweeteners of all kinds found in diet drinks and food, some types of chewing gums, processed yogurt and other processed foods, chlorinated water, environmental pollution, antacids, laxatives, alcoholic drinks, agro-chemicals and pesticides. But this may not lead to such complications, had your normal flora of gut maintained. Yes, imbalance between good and bad bacteria inside gut, which we call normal flora is the root cause of long run gastrointestinal problems.
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Bowels of majority of patients are generally populated with more than 80% bad bacteria. The ideal ratio of bacterial strains is considered to be at least 85% of good bacteria.
Lets begin with solutions to overcome it.
Probiotic supplements
Simply supplement your diet with healthy probiotic bacteria. Recent scientific evidences clearly show that supplementing your diet with probiotics on daily basis has even greater impacts on your health than taking multi-vitamin supplements.
More that 150 studies have verified the positive effects of taking probiotics, for the optimum health including:
- Improved lactose metabolization,
- Strengthening of immune system (80% of immune system are in our bowels)
- Anti-carcinogenic effect (probiotics reduce the activity of enzymes that play a key role in development of cancer)
- Anti-inflammatory effects in the gut (countering irritable bowel syndrome and other inflammations)
- Helps in loosing weight
Generally, probiotics contains: Lactobacillus acidophilus, Bifidobacterium animalis lactis, Streptococcus thermophilus
Avoid sugar of all types in diet
If you consume sugar of any types in your diet you are feeding bad bacteria and fungi of pathogenic nature in your gut. This effect of sugar is even more devastating for your health than its impact on your blood sugar or development of insulin resistant. Well, you may think of replacing sugars with artificial sweeteners but that is not solution either. These sweeteners contains chlorine atoms that kill good bacteria in the gut, just like chlorine kills bugs in swimming pools.
Giving up sugar completely is very difficult and not very enjoyable, because it means that we have to avoid many of our favorite dishes. Also, there are a lot of foods that contains sugar that we don’t know about. So, most people don’t stick with ‘No Sugar’ strategy for long time.
Eat more ‘Resistant Starch’ rich food
Well, it includes eating food like potatoes, unripe bananas, green beans and other pulses. Are you surprised? Resistant starch is basically a type of fibre that cannot be absorbed by the small intestine of health people. So, it passes to the large intestine, where it is fermented by the bacteria there. This creates very positive effect on the gut intestinal flora and overall bacterial balance. Simply, the more processed food you eat and the less raw fruit and vegetables, the lower the share of resistant starch is in your diet.
For instance, potatoes contain significant amount of resistant starch, but only if they are raw. Once boiled or fried, the amount is significantly lower and therefore insufficient.
Eat fermented foods
These types of foods are rich in good bacteria, and consuming them helps to restore the balance of the bacteria in your gut. Some examples include pickled cabbage, fermented soy, and unsweetened, plain organic natural yogurt (with live and active cultures).
Now, make sure you give pasteurized products such as processed yogurt a wide berth, because pasteurizing, or ‘lightly boiling’, destroys many of the natural probiotics.
Avoid antibiotics, medication and other chemicals
Antibiotics and other medication fights specific bad bacteria, but unfortunately they can also kill or limit growth of good bacteria in the gut.
Even if you take antibiotics indirectly, e,g, by consuming meat from intensively farmed animals, where antibiotics and regularly pumped into these animals, or through agrichemicals and pesticides that normally occur in most fresh foods, this has negative impact on intestinal flora.
Consuming 100% organic foods, free from chemicals, pesticides and antibiotics, would certainly be a really good way to restore the balance between good and bad bacteria in your gut. Although this strategy is very effective, its quite expensive and not affordable for many people.
Hope you like this article. Cheers! See you in next article.
