The Three Most Common Gut Issues and How To Fix Them | Ben Greenfield

So the tummy can be a pretty mysterious thing. And you know this, if you've ever dealt with bloating, with indigestion or heartburn, with constipation, even with things like brain fog, because of the intimate interaction between your brain and your gut. And the fact is that there are a host of issues that can break your gut or cause your digestive system to work improperly. And what I want to tell you about are three of the most common ones that I run across time and time again in people who have gut problems. And also, I wanted to give you just one proven tip that I've used to change my own digestion and my own gut health dramatically. I think you'll be pretty surprised at what that tip actually is. So, like I mentioned, there's three things that I find to really affect a lot of people when it comes to gut health. The first is bacterial imbalances based on good bacteria being in poor balance with bad bacteria. And one of the number one things that causes the type of bacterial imbalances, or the type of what is called bacterial overgrowth that people encounter is an absence of good bacteria and an overgrowth of bad bacteria. So let me give you an example. One common condition that causes both bloating and gas, as well as constipation that tends to fly under the radar even a lot of physicians don't know about. This is called small intestine bacterial overgrowth, or sibo. S I b O. Now, it's kind of gross to think about, but SIBO occurs when bacteria that are supposed to be in your colon and your large intestine mobilize up your body and take over your small intestine. And. And they're fed by things like sugar and starches. They're allowed to do this due to not enough good bacteria in your digestive tract, combined with lots of things that they can ferment on. Things like fructose and sugar and starches and alcohols, and all the things that these bacteria feed upon in the small intestine, resulting in what bacteria actually produce, and that is gas. Just like cows, bacteria produce gas in your small intestines. Kind of gross to think about a bunch of bacteria farting in your small intestine, making you not feel all that great. But the good news is there are ways that you can beat something like sibo. So to make sure that this doesn't happen to you, one tip that you probably could have guessed is to eat a wide variety of good bacteria that help to balance out the bad bacteria. We're talking about things like fermented foods. Kimchi, sauerkraut, good organic or raw yogurts and milks, some cheeses, even some probiotic capsules that have lots of good strains in them can help to build up the good bacteria and keep the bad bacteria at bay. At the same time, there are natural compounds from nature that can help to kill some of that bad bacteria that takes over the digestive tract. Two perfect examples are garlic, which you can get from including garlic as a staple in your diet, and also oregano, which you can consume as an essential oil or even in the form of things like the herb thyme in your diet quite frequently. So overgrowth of bad bacteria is one issue. Another issue is what is known as leaky gut, which is just what it sounds like. Holes getting poked in the walls of the intestinal lining, resulting in foods that you eat, the not only getting digested improperly, but winding up in your bloodstream. And this can result in inflammation and a whole host of immune system issues like thyroid problems and acne and eczema and all the things that we associate with disease, but that often simply result from a gut that needs to be tended properly. So what are some things that you can do to decrease a leaky gut or to heal a leaky gut? Well, you simply want to introduce into your body compounds that help the gut to heal, while being careful to avoid things that can cause inflammation or holes in the lining of the digestive tract. Things that can help the gut to heal would include elements like bone broth, whether it's homemade or bone broth that you purchase. Glutamine is another perfect example of something that you can find that's very helpful for the digestive tract. Colostrum, which you'll find in raw milk and also as a supplement, is another thing that can heal up the digestive tract. There are also certain compounds that you can make, like chia seeds, where you'll take a bunch of chia seeds, put them in a glass of water, allow them to sit for a few hours in the refrigerator, and this can help to coat the lining of your stomach. There's also an herb called slippery elm bark that you can make a tea out of and consume that. And very similar to chia seeds, it helps to coat the lining of your stomach and keep a lot of these leaky gut issues at bay. At the same time, you want to decrease intake of things that can poke holes in the lining of the gut. And. And the number one thing that does that is a common component that you find in plants, in wheat, in soy, in corn, in anything that's been sprayed and grown commercially, because glyphosate is a component that kills weeds, that kills insects, but that also does the same thing once it winds up in your digestive tract. So consider the wheat that you're consuming, the corn, the soy, et cetera, and even the animals that you're consuming, and whether or not they've actually fed on crops that have been sprayed with glyphosate. And you're going to do a pretty good job ensuring that you're not consuming compounds that poke holes in the lining of your gut. Now, in addition to bacterial overgrowth and a leaky gut, the final thing that I've found to be an issue for a lot of people is eating foods that have natural defense mechanisms. Let's take quinoa, a perfect example. A food, a grain that we know is somewhat healthy, high in amino acids and high in minerals, but but is actually coated with what are called saponins. It's a soap like, irritant to the gut, because quinoa, as a plant wants to survive a long time. It wants a mammal to eat it, and then it wants that seed to pass through the body and get pooped out somewhere else for more quinoa to grow. So saponin is on the outer layer of the quinoa, which makes this healthy food indigestible and a food that causes gut issues for a lot of people. Well, how can we fix that? It's very simple. You can buy quinoa, and before you eat it, you can put it in a glass mason jar, and you can rinse it, leave it overnight in that jar in water, and then in the morning, pour the water out the quinoa into a strainer, rinse it again, put it back into the jar, and just a few cycles of rinsing and soaking something like quinoa in the same way that our ancestors might have done, will actually make the quinoa far more digestible. The same could be said for four. For example, fermenting wheat, or fermenting dairy or fermenting soy, or soaking and sprouting certain foods like legumes and lentils, for example. All these plants have built in natural defense mechanisms. But remember, humans are smarter than plants. It's not an issue of not eating things like legumes and beans and grains and quinoa. It's just a matter of treating them properly. So pay attention to bacterial overgrowth, pay attention to leaky gut, and pay attention to the hidden killers in some of these healthy foods that you eat. And how about that digestive tip that I wanted to give you? For every meal that you eat, Try to chew each bite 25 times. Yes, 25 times. This will activate digestive enzymes. It will activate hormones that allow you to feel fuller, faster. It will allow for activation of hydrochloric acid to begin to break down proteins. All sorts of cool things happen when you slow down and chew your food, rather than, as my mother would say, hoovering it.