Immunity
Trust Your Gut: Improving Your Microbiome to Boost Immunity
People are looking for ways to prevent an illness before they even get sick. Finding ways to increase your body's ability to defend itself from a virus or bacteria is a lot easier than you think!
Trust your gut
Believe it or not, your digestive system plays a significant role in keeping your body healthy. Your stomach has a complete microbiome of the bacterial flora that helps your body break down and move food on to the next step in the digestive tract. This bacterial garden can become imbalanced when people take antibiotics, or eat foods that kill the good bacteria that is needed to help aid digestion.
What does this have to do with immunity? Well, according to Hopkins Medicine, a good portion of our immune system is in our gut. In addition to possibly preventing things like Cancer, a healthy microbiome can also have positive impacts on IBD. Also, when our gut flora is thriving, our bodies get more of the vitamins and minerals from the foods we consume.
Ways to improve gut flora
There are few ways to boost bacterial flora in the stomach.
- Consuming fermented foods like yogurt and kefir
- Eat your veggies. Vegetables and fruits contain fiber, which is beneficial for your digestive tract. Fruits and veggies also contain prebiotics that helps keep gut flora flourishing
- Include polyphenol-rich foods in your diet. Foods like chocolate and broccoli contain high amounts of polyphenol which feed the good bacteria in your digestive system.
- Probiotic supplements may also be an option.
Microbiome testing
If you're experiencing digestive issues or just curious about how well your digestive tract is functioning, you can get microbiome testing. The microbiome test is quick and noninvasive. The test involves using a stool sample to analyze the DNA of your gut flora to determine if there are imbalances. Knowing if you need to increase the good bacteria in your stomach can help you improve your overall health and boost immunity.
Contact us if you're interested in improving your immunity and learning more about your microbiome health.