Bloating ... Constipation... Diarrhoea... Nausea...
Have I got your attention? The above are common symptoms I hear in clinic daily and what alot of people don't know is that they are symptom. To avoid experiencing these recurring we need to get to the source of the problem.
When it comes to your health you will hear me say how important it is that we “test, don’t guess”. Considering all disease starts in the gut, and so too does all health, we absolutely must understand and optimise our microbiome to thrive.
Your gut microbiome should look like a flourishing rainforest with beautiful soil, sun, rain, canopies, animals, flowers... you get the picture- a lot of diversity! When looked after, your microbiome gives you optimal health and vitality, a boost in immune system function, improvement in mood, it synthesises important vitamins and assists with waste elimination creating a healthy digestive system.
How do we know if our gut microbiome looks like a rainforest or is overgrown with weeds?
Through comprehensive microbiome testing we eliminate the guess work, allowing us to see what your personal gut microbiome looks like, the diversity it inhabits and most importantly what job these microbes do to promote your health or reduce it.
I have partnered up with microba and metagenics for their metabiome test. This is conducted via a simple stool swab. Microba’s shot-gun metagenome sequencing allows us to see not only what bugs (bacteria) are in your gut, but what they are doing. The metabiome results provides you with a score, which is an indication of your overall gut health based on the latest scientific evidence. The results are also broken down into Functional Insights, this allows us to understand how these metabolites are impacting key areas including.
· General gut health
· Gut mucosal health
· Gut motility
· Metabolic health
· Nervous system health
· Immune health
· Inflammatory balance
· Detoxification
What our gut bugs are capable of doing is far more important than a list of what makes up our microbiome . Microbial diversity is the key to a healthy, resilient gut, improving your diet is one of the most important steps to addressing your gut health. This may be a matter of removing inflammatory foods, foods that create inflammation and irritation, increasing dietary fibre, fibre is food for our microbes and without we lose our gut diversity. Diversity is measured and a score is given, a high microbial diversity is correlated with exceptional health. The report also gives a list of each species detected in your microbiome, listed in order of abundance. A list of foods is provided “microbiome fuel” that will promote the growth of beneficial bacteria that may be lower than optimal. This is so exciting and really is using food as medicine!
For change to happen, change needs to be made.
Dietary changes – Kylie will be able to provide you with dietary suggestions around what types of food will encourage the growth of beneficial bacteria. The way we eat our food can also be the cause of bloating and other digestive symptoms.
Improving Stress response - Unmanaged stress can lead to the stress hormone cortisol being released causing inflammation.
Alcohol intake - Causes inflammation in the GIT effecting diversity and allowing non-beneficial bacteria to increase.
Exercise – Keep moving, a sedentary lifestyle has been shown to effect diversity, moderate exercise has been shown to increase inflammation.
Sleep – Aim for 7-8hrs sleep a night this is our bodies time to repair.
Antibiotics and other medications – These can disrupt your microbiome causing inflammation, digestive problems and allowing pathogens to be overgrown which can reduce health.
Environmental toxins – The world we live in today has a big effect on our gut microbiome including what we eat, drink and what we put on our largest organ our skin. From what we use in our homes to clean with, to the the fragrances we use make our homes smell nice - with the list goes on.
What do I need to do?
I would love you to consider mapping your microbiome and empower yourself with the knowledge to rebalance your gut and elevate your health and longevity.
You can book a complimentary 15minute chat with Kylie for more information and to see if this is something that will benefit you and your gut health journey.