Nurture Your Gut and Gain More Nutrients

Get our gut health wrong and we could be looking at developing a whole host of troublesome conditions. Why? Because the gut helps us digest and process nutrients from food, as well as keep our immune system strong.

That’s quite a role and it’s why it’s so important to make sure that our ‘gut flora’ is balanced. By ‘gut flora’ we mainly mean the microbiome that is found in our large intestine (or colon). There is also flora in our small intestine and stomach but, by far, the majority of it is either inside our large intestine or clinging to its walls.

In fact, the colon contains a massive 100 trillion microbes, with around 5,000 different species of bacteria – that’s 10 times more than in the human body as a whole. These gut microbes weight around 2 kilos in total (or the size of a hamster).

What makes a healthy gut flora?

Our guts are a balance of good and bad bacteria but provided there’s more of the former than the latter, then we should be firing on all cylinders health-wise. But the converse is true too. When there’s too much bad bacteria, the gut can become leaky, causing toxins to flood into the bloodstream. This makes it easy for allergies and other immune-compromised illnesses to develop.

Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), in particular, is often linked to a lack of good ‘beneficial bacteria’ in the gut. Having said that, some prebiotics and probiotics can make IBS worse so it’s important to get the correct strains for your condition in the first place if you plan on taking supplements.

How does the gut become imbalanced anyway?

A diet high in sugar, fatty and processed foods certainly won’t do your gut any favours. Nor will failing to eat a decent amount of vegetables, fruit, leafy greens and wholefoods. Individuals prescribed long-term courses of antibiotics may also be prone to gut problems. That’s because antibiotics wipe out all the bacteria in the gut – both good and bad. Unfortunately, if the bad bacteria grows back first it can take hold and then multiply at an alarming rate.

How can we supplement good bacteria?

Probiotics such as Bifidobacteria and Lactobacilli are powerful supplements that can be ingested in supplement form. They can boost the number of friendly bacteria already in the gut and in doing so, help eliminate the bad.

Prebiotics, such as inulin and fructooligosaccharides (FOS) are also helpful as a dietary supplement. These are forms of fibre and is what the microbes in the gut feed on. There’s no point in ingesting probiotics if there’s nothing for them to feed on and grow.

Another form of good bacteria is the microbes that help to produce vitamin K and short-chain fatty acids. That’s because these are the bacteria that line and strengthen the colon’s walls. In doing so they keep out toxins and help to reduce inflammatory conditions. They may even help fight colon cancer, as this 2019 Italian study shows.

NutraProbio Digest 

Our NutraProbio Digest formula here at NutraVit contains both prebiotics and probiotics, as well as digestive enzymes, vitamins and minerals. Each individual capsule contains 20 billion probiotic cultures from eight individual strains.

The result is better gut performance and fewer gastrointestinal problems, such as bloating and constipation. The prebiotic inulin can also help maintain healthy blood sugar levels and lead to feeling full so may help with weight loss too.

What foods contain prebiotics and probiotics?

Famously, fermented foods such as sauerkraut, kefir and live yoghurt all contain the live cultures needed for probiotics to thrive. Even pickles and kombucha tea have a similar effect. Prebiotics are more in abundance in our foods, being found in garlic, onions, bananas, whole grains and green leafy vegetables.