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What is gut health and why is it important?
By Jen Lewis,
2024-06-12
How often, if ever, do you think about your gut or digestion? Unless there’s an issue, most people don’t, but you should. We all should.
There’s growing evidence linking our gut health to our overall health.
Dr. David Johnson is an esteemed gastroenterologist, author and researcher with Eastern Virginia Medical School who has studied this a great deal over many years.
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Jen Lewis stole some of his time and learned a lot.
“Digestion or gut health is all about the microbiome," he explained to Jen. "So, we’re talking about bacteria, viruses, fungi and other organisms. This forms the basis for how energy is extracted, how food is metabolized and how things are protected against invaders.”
Michael Woodward/WTKR Bacteria, viruses, fungi and other organisms live in your gut microbiome.
Microbiome refers to all of the microorganisms in the environment—in this case, the gut. It can help us build a strong immune system while contributing to a healthy heart, brain, mood, digestion and even sleep.
Michael Woodward/WTKR Your gut microbiome impacts your heart, brain, mood, digestion, and even sleep.
Dr. Johnson told Jen about some of his research.
“We did a study about sleep and the effect of sleep on the gut bacteria, and we looked at the brain and found 100% concordance," he said. "If you interfered with sleep, you change the gut bacteria, you change the protection factor of the gut and your gut genes immediately also changing them in the brain.”
The gut is known as the "second brain" since it produces many of the same chemicals. Also, the two communicate along what’s called the gut-brain axis that links the gastrointestinal tract with the central nervous system. Research also suggests connections to other organ systems.
“You can’t pick up any journal these days without seeing the implications of gut health as it relates to GI diseases or gastrointestinal diseases, infection, a variety of things that relate to inflammation, arthritic and inflammatory diseases and cardiovascular health," according to Dr. Johnson.
Michael Woodward/WTKR The gut and the brain produce many of the same chemicals. They communicate along the gut-brain axis that links the gastrointestinal tract with the central nervous system.
Harvard Health data indicates there may very well be a link to your heart, but it travels in one direction: from the GI tract to the heart. Keeping your gut healthy can be another means to protect against cardiovascular disease. So, how do we do that?
Dr. Johnson encourages sleep, exercise and eating right.
“We look at a healthy diet, which I call the Mediterranean diet," he said. "That’s the one that begins with building your meal, not processed foods. Ultra-processed foods are incredibly common. About a third of the U.S. population at present, by CDC criteria, eat at fast food restaurants or have fast food from a machine every day.”
Highly processed foods promote inflammation and the high fructose corn syrup often found in those foods as well as in sugary drinks, like sodas, are described by Dr. Johnson as insidious. His research has linked both to obesity and additional risk for developing GI diseases, like colorectal cancer.
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The rise in the number of cases and the age of those being impacted is alarming.
Dr. Johnson shared new data from a recent national gastrointestinal physician’s meeting.
“The increase in incidence in patients that are 15 to 19 is 333%, 25 to 29, it’s 165%, 40 to 45 it’s 68%," he said. "We’re seeing numbers off the chart and we’re not even talking about the age that they would start screening. Colon cancer is no longer a disease of the elderly. It’s not just happening to people 50 and older, young people can be affected as well."
Guidelines for those with an average risk for colorectal cancer are now 45 years old, but younger people are also being impacted. Dr. Johnson believes the evidence clearly links this frightening trend to diet, specifically food additives, along with obesity and a sedentary lifestyle.
Making even small changes to how we eat and how we move works to keep disease at bay.
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