It’s a new year and many of us have pledged to make a new start.
Among all the commitments we make to ourselves to improve our health in 2021, here’s one that should be near the top of our ‘to do’ list – listening to our guts.
Dr Erika Ebbel Angle is a gut health specialist. As Erika tells us in this TED Talks from 2019, she’s dedicated her professional life to studying the gut microbiome.
Among a long list of awards and achievements, Erika is the cofounder of Ixcela, a gut microbiome biotechnology testing company.
Rather than a specific organ or a collection of organs, Erika tells us that the gut microbiome refers to “everything in our bodies” beginning at the mouth and traversing the body through to the colon. It’s a testament to the ancient wisdom that we are what we eat.
Along the journey from ‘entry to exit’ live billions of organisms and it’s the variety of these viruses, fungi, cells and bacteria that determines our gut health.
The mix of organisms is essential because the different bugs have different tasks, most especially to break down and extract nutrients from the different food types.
Erika says that a poor diet damages our microbiome in two ways:
- it prevents us from receiving the nutrients we need to stay healthy
- it can change the composition of our microbiome, causing an inability to breakdown nutrients.
Over time, our microbiomes become populated with the organisms that reflect our diet.
When we lack variety in our diet, we also lack the variety of gut organisms we need to process vital nutrients such as dopamine, adrenaline and the antioxidants that fight free radical molecules.
A healthy gut increases our energy levels, we’ll be sick less often and we’ll enjoy better mental clarity and emotional wellbeing.
By comparison, Erika says that studies show there’s a relationship between poor digestive health and auto-immune conditions such as diabetes, neuro-degenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s, and even emotional issues such as anxiety and depression.
And that brings us to long-term stress and its damaging effect on our gut health.
Anyone who has ever felt queasy at a time of anxiety will know that our guts and our brains are inextricably linked and in constant communication with one another.
The takeaway from Erika’s presentation is that if we look after our gut health, our microbiomes will more than return the favour.
