Include Prebiotics And Probiotics In Your Diet
These good-for-you types of bacteria are a sure way to replenish good bacteria after antibiotics. Prebiotics work alongside probiotics to help restore the good bacteria in your gut in order to keep your health in tip-top shape. Prebiotics and probiotics can be incorporated into your diet through supplements or by eating certain probiotic- and prebiotic-rich foods:
- Probiotic-rich Foods – greek yogurt, tempeh, kimchi, kefir, kombucha, raw cheese, and miso
- Prebiotic-rich Foods – rye, asparagus, bananas, oats, Jerusalem artichoke, chicory root, yacon root
While common sense would tell you to down these foods at the same time as antibiotics to cancel them out, that’s not how our body works. In order for your body to actually benefit from the prebiotics and repopulate good bacteria, prebiotics should be eaten a few hours either before or after you take your antibiotics. If antibiotics are taken along with prebiotics, the medication will kill the good bacteria immediately instead of allowing your gut to absorb it properly.
How To Know If Your Gut Is Healing
Once you have these principles in place, the next thing to know is when you are on the right track. How are you supposed to know if your gut is repairing itself?
âYou should have reduced gastrointestinal issues and generally feel more energized and clear-headed,â says Gilbert. Dr. Macciochi adds that beyond that, more noticeable benefits should follow: âOver time, the positive effects will extend beyond your digestion and you may see further improvements in the appearance of skin and a better mood.â
She also warns of another potential post-antibiotic problem â loss of tolerance to dairy or other foods. âKeep eating a very small amount, increasing slowly over time,â she advises. âEliminating foods for good without a medical reason, such as a diagnosed allergy, can make food intolerances worse.â
Because we have a totally personalized gut microbiota, recovery will also be totally personal. âWe share 99.5% of our genes, but only about a quarter of our microbes â even in identical twins,â says Professor Spector. Some peopleâs gut microbiota can repopulate in days, others in weeks, but no matter how long it takes, âyou can be sure your microbes will thank you for feeding them,â says Cunningham. Itâs the best approach after a course of antibiotics, but itâs a plan for good gut health for life.
Read Up On Stress Management Techniques
Stress can affect the pace at which food moves through your body. So, if you are always stressed out, it can cause either diarrhea or constipation. Bear in mind that both of these conditions can lead to the further disruption of your gut flora. Luckily, there are many effective strategies for reducing stress!
Many experts recommend keeping in touch with your friends and loved ones, engaging in regular physical exercise, and getting an adequate amount of sleep every night. Others suggest taking up yoga or trying out different meditation techniques.
However, if you find dealing with stress and anxiety nearly impossible, you might want to look into booking an appointment with a psychotherapist. They will be able to give you professional advice tailored to your specific needs.
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Skip Gluten And Dairy To Reduce Food Sensitivities
Since the diversity of your gut flora plays a significant role in metabolism and immunity, you may develop food sensitivities after your treatment plan. After completing your treatment, you may want to avoid the common culprits of food intolerances such as dairy and gluten, which is a protein present in wheat.
For this reason, you may find it beneficial to eat a plant-based diet after. Studies have shown that vegetarian diets can benefit your healthy gut microbiota. This happens because of the high fiber content in many vegetarian foods. By following a vegetarian diet, you can reduce the levels of bacteria that cause diseases, as well as losing weight, reducing inflammation, and cholesterol levels.
While diets that contain animal-based foods promote the growth of different types of bacteria than plant-based diets do. Vegetarian and vegan diets can improve healthy gut microbiota. Although, it is unclear whether the positive effects are a result of a lack of meat.
Ditch The Standard Western Diet
The evidence for the devastating effect of a processed, high-sugar, low-fibre modern diet on our health continues to mount up. A recent study described our 21st-century diets as an evolutionarily unique selection ground for microbes that can promote diverse forms of inflammatory disease . This means that the bad bacteria in our guts appear to love our deficient diets, while the all-important good ones arent so keen.
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Ways To Optimize Your Gut Bacteria For Optimal Weight Loss
When it comes to losing weight, most diets focus on calorie reduction and exercise. While eating less and exercising more will usually result in weight-loss, Dr. Kellman says that if you get your microbiome healthy, you will lose weight. Its all about correcting the overgrowth of unhealthy bacteria, which is making you crave the wrong foods and triggering inflammation. This makes sense because when you change your gut bacteria, you change how your body produces and metabolizes energy.
This also explains why so many people lose weight only to gain it right back because the bad bacteria are still present in your gut. The bad bacteria remember when you were fat, and they want to continue to live, so they trigger cravings for the foods that feed them.
In addition to the steps I outline above, here are 15 more ways to set up your gut for weight loss:
Antibiotics And Gut Health: What Goes Wrong
Antibiotics have one job: kill bacteria and stop them from multiplying. However, this simple task is what leads to a disruption in your gut microbiome.
Antibiotics cannot tell the difference between good bacteria and bad bacteria. Their job is to simply go to your gut and kill bacteria. They dont discriminate between the good and bad.
When antibiotics enter your system and kill off bacteria seemingly at random, your balance of good and bad bacteria can be thrown out of wack. This is a major issue as the good bacteria in your system play a vital role in protecting you from issues such as SIBO or Candida overgrowth. As the number of good bacteria in your gut decreases, you become susceptible to overgrowths of other organisms, including a yeast called Candida.
While a small amount of yeast is normal and necessary, Candida is opportunistic. If given the chance, such as antibiotic usage killing off protective good bacteria, it will grow and multiply quickly especially when its fed sugar, carbohydrates, or alcohol. When yeast starts to multiply, it can damage the lining of your intestinal walls. This leads to increased intestinal permeability and whats known as leaky gut.
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How Do Antibiotics Work
Antibiotics are mighty drugs that people are given when they have a bacterial infection. They target bacteria causing infections, and kill or decrease the growth of that bacteria.
Unfortunately, antibiotics dont stop at only killing bad bacteria. Instead, antibiotics kill good bacteria too. So antibiotics affect your entire microbiome. When an imbalance of good and bad bacteria happens, the microbiome can become unhappy, and this has consequences for problems with digestion, inflammation, and even mood and brain health.
A Brief Introduction To The Human Microbiome
Your body is home to trillions of good microbes that help it thrive and function normally. They are present in different areas within or on your body and are collectively called the human microbiome.
According to recent studies, the number of these microbes in or on your body is almost equal to the number of body cells you have . Over 1,000 species of bacteria, fungi, viruses, and other single-cell organisms make up your microbiota. Any imbalance in their number can lead to serious health issues such as diarrhea.
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How Do Antibiotics Affect The Gut Microbiome
Since antibiotics not only act on infectious bacteria but all bacteria found in the gastrointestinal tract, they can have direct and indirect effects on the gut microbiome, including:
- Affecting the diversity of organism species in the gut, including the beneficial ones
- Affecting the healthy balance of organism species in the gut
- Increasing the risk of developing IBD
- Contributing to the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria
Foods The Kill Bad Gut Bacteria
Diet has a huge influence over the composition of the microbiome, and regularly eating foods that are nutritious and supportive of the symbiotic microbiome while being selective against pathogens is an excellent way to heal from gut dysbiosis and restore healthy gut flora. Here are three foods that kill pathogens while supporting overall gut health.
Pumpkin seeds are an example of a food that specifically kills bad gut bacteria. Pumpkin seeds have anti-parasitic and anti-microbial properties, and eating a bolus dose of pumpkin seeds is not only incredibly nutritious, but it creates a wave of microbiome-supporting food that transits through the digestive system killing pathogens while supporting the growth of symbionts. Eat raw pumpkin seeds as a snack a few times a week and over time itll have a positive influence on your microbiome.
Another food that kills bad gut bacteria would be coffee. Coffee contains fiber and flavonoids and other useful compounds that have been shown to shift the microbiome towards greater symbiosis while improving the gut-brain axis.
Pickles are another food that are good at killing bad gut bacteria because not only are they fermented and contain abundant fiber, cucumber seeds like pumpkin seeds have anti-parasitic and antimicrobial properties. In fact all squashes are very nutritious, contains abundant fiber, and are super useful for the microbiome.
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What Does The Science Say About Probiotics
Probiotics are widely promoted as being good for your overall health. The science on that has been mixed, but it does suggest people who are likely to get diarrhoea after antibiotics may benefit from consuming them.
One review of the evidence found probiotics may be useful for those at high risk of antibiotic-associated diarrhoea, such as the elderly and people in hospital.
The review found side effects were common when taking antibiotics and include taste disturbances, nausea, abdominal cramping, soft stools, fever and flatulence.
But people taking probiotics reported fewer side effects, suggesting they may be helpful in countering some of the side effects.
Choose Herbs Over Pills If You Are Looking For Long
Each of the good âbugsâ in our microbiome have different needs and different functions â and food is the best way to support them. âEach microbe in the gut feeds on different types of plant chemicals , and each plant contains hundreds of different chemicals, so variety is crucial,â says Professor Spector. Stylist.
The key is to make sure the plants you eat contain fiber, so that they reach the lower part of the colon. âThatâs why real food is better ,â he says.
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Stop Smoking And Minimize Drinking
If you really want to take care of your gut flora, it would be best to stop smoking and reduce your alcohol consumption. You might not be fully aware of it, but both of these things have a huge negative impact on your intestines.
Smoking has harmful effects on basically every part of your digestive system. Consequently, smokers tend to suffer from heartburn and peptic ulcers more often than nonsmokers. To make things worse, smoking makes treating those conditions much more complicated than it should be.
And when it comes to alcohol, excessive consumption can cause gut inflammation. It might not seem like a big deal, but aside from lowering the diversity among your good gut bacteria, long-term inflammation increases the risk of cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and dementia.
Parasites: The Missing Link To Chronic Illness
Often the root cause of chronic illnesses, parasites are more common than you think!
In humans, these organisms can cause a wide array of symptoms digestive trouble, skin rashes, irritability, teeth grinding, heart palpitations, anxiety, depression and more and many people are unknowingly infected.
If youve been sick for years, parasites could be causing some of your symptoms. Join me and learn how to properly detect and eliminate them!
Parasites: The Missing Link to Chronic Illness could help you answer questions like:
- Why are parasite infections such a big deal?
- How do I know if I have a parasitic infection?
- What is the connection between parasites & autoimmunity?
- Do environmental factors impact parasitic infections?
- How do I implement an antiparasitic diet?
- Whats preventing me from eliminating parasites?
- How do I defend against getting parasites in the first place?
- Get answers to these and many more questions!
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The Composition Of Gut Bacteria Almost Recovers After Antibiotics
- Date:
- University of Copenhagen The Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences
- Summary:
- The use of antibiotics has long been linked to deprivation of gut bacteria. Now, a new study shows that the composition and function of gut bacteria can recover after antibiotic treatment in healthy people. But after six months, the gut still lack nine common beneficial bacterial species.
The trillions of bacteria in the human gut affect our health in multiple ways including effects on immune functions and metabolism. A rich and diverse gut microbiota is considered to promote health providing the human host with many competences to prevent chronic diseases. In contrast, poor diversity of the gut ecosystem is a characteristic feature of chronic diseases including obesity, diabetes, asthma and gut inflammatory disorders.
Due the general bacterial-killing nature of antibiotics, it has been speculated that repetitive use of antibiotics deprives people of a rich gut bacterial environment and through this lead to adverse health effects.
Now, an international team of researchers led from the University of Copenhagen and Steno Diabetes Center Copenhagen report when 3 antibiotics were given to young healthy men for 4 days it caused an almost complete eradication of gut bacteria, followed by a gradual recovery of most bacterial species over a period of six months.
Is the missing beneficial gut microbes in the Western world due to over usage of antibiotics?
Story Source:
Add Gut Repairing Supplements To Your Routine
Collagen does more than just improve your hair, skin, and nails. It also plays a role in restoring gut health. This is because collagen makes up the villi of your small intestine. Your villi are like tiny little fingers that grab nutrients and move them into your bloodstream. They vastly increase the surface area of your gut, making it easier for your body to absorb nutrients. Taking a collagen supplement will help restore your gut lining, nurture your villi, and ward off leaky gut.
Supplementing with Leaky Gut Revive® is another great way to protect your gut. Leaky Gut Revive® combats the root cause of leaky gut by fortifying your gut and keeping your microflora in balance. Using it in conjunction with collagen will provide a one-two punch of protection against harm to your gut from antibiotics.
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Have A Diverse And Balanced Diet
Consuming a variety of different foods is really beneficial to your health. Firstly, it provides your body with all of the vitamins and nutrients it needs to do its job. Secondly, and most importantly, it helps the bacterial species in your gut thrive! But where should you begin if you are trying to change your diet for the better? Lets start with the basics!
When preparing your meals, keep in mind that they should consist of foods that are rich in fiber and protein. Fiber boosts the functioning of your digestive system, while protein is an integral part of all human cells. As such, your body needs it to repair cells and make new ones.
Next, try to avoid foods that are high in saturated fats and sugar, such as pastries and chocolate milk. They can trigger gut inflammation and indigestion that can result in bloating and diarrhea. Developing such symptoms while you are trying to improve the state of your gut flora would be pretty counterproductive, dont you think?
How To Restore Gut Health After Antibiotics
Science Based Amy Myers, MD
Amy Myers, M.D. is a functional medicine physician, trained and certified by The Institute of Functional Medicine. Dr. Myers earned her Doctor of Medicine at the LSU Health Science Center, and completed her Emergency Medicine residency at the University of Maryland Medical Center.
Dr. Myers retired from her functional medicine clinic, Austin UltraHealth, where she served thousands of patients, to empower those who were failed by conventional medicine. Shes a 2x New York Times bestselling author, and the founder and CEO of the health & lifestyle e-commerce brand, Amy Myers MD®.
If youve ever taken a round of antibiotics to fight an infection, you are not alone! While antibiotics are sometimes unavoidable, nearly 50% of the antibiotics prescribed are unnecessary and do more harm than good.1
Antibiotics are the most commonly prescribed medication in the United States. I recommend that no one use antibiotics unless absolutely necessary because they suppress your immune system and disrupt the balance between the good and bad bacteria.
I understand that taking antibiotics may sometimes be unavoidable. Restoring your gut health after a cycle of antibiotics is critical to maintain and achieve optimal health!
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