Gotta Get a Healthy Gut
The microbiome is a hot topic and the emerging research is exciting. Our Gut Health poster does a great job of explaining what we know so far – diet impacts your microbiome and your microbiome impacts your health.
Whether you’re counseling a patient with an autoimmune disease or teaching a class on weight control, the microbiome is relevant. Researchers think gut health affects the immune system, mood, body weight, inflammation, food allergies, certain autoimmune diseases, and more.
Here are 6 microbiome basics and lesson talking points to go along with the Gut Health poster:
- Your gut is home to trillions of microbes – we call this your microbiome. Some of the microbes are beneficial and some are not.
- Researchers think the microbiome influences our health, including the immune system, mood, body weight, inflammation, food allergies, and certain autoimmune diseases.
- In a healthy microbiome or a healthy gut, the beneficial microbes keep the bad ones from taking over and causing problems.
- What you eat impacts your microbiome, as does adequate sleep and physical activity.
- These foods support a healthy microbiome: fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean protein (plant and animal sources).
- These foods support an unhealthy microbiome: added sugars, processed foods, alcohol, too much animal protein, and saturated fat.