STATE COLLEGE — Perhaps you’ve been experiencing digestive issues like belly pain, bloating, diarrhea, or constipation. Or, maybe you’ve noticed your metabolism is slowing down and you can’t seem to shed the extra weight. Perhaps you’ve been feeling sluggish, depressed, and you’re having trouble sleeping. Maybe your doctor has not been able to give you a definitive diagnosis, and yet, you have a gut feeling that something is wrong with you.
Don’t ignore that “gut feeling.” Your gut could hold the key to fixing whatever ails you.
That’s because there is a strong link between health and the microorganisms that inhabit the digestive system (the “gut”), according to Barb Cole, a family nurse practitioner at Penn State Hershey Medical Group in State College who has been researching this cutting-edge topic.
According to Cole, many health issues so common in today’s world, including diabetes, obesity, ADHD, depression and anxiety, have been exacerbated by the consumption of prepackaged convenience foods in the modern western diet.
“I blame Pop-Tarts,” said Cole. “That’s a perfect example. It’s commercially packaged, full of chemicals and additives and emulsifiers, and tons of things we are not designed to eat — things that actually destroy what should live in our guts.
“If we ate like people did 100 or 200 years ago, the bacteria complexity within our gut would be anti-inflammatory,” she continued, “But all of the sugars, the sweeteners, the processed junk we are eating today — that stuff is actually food for inflammatory bacteria. It allows them to thrive and multiply quickly, and they take over.
“And the inflammation isn’t just causing stomach problems. The inflammation is causing heart disease, strokes, joint pain, autoimmune diseases — the list goes on and on. Everything is connected. Your gut is truly your second brain. Researchers are starting to recognize that the bacteria that live there are closely linked to either keeping you healthy, or causing disease.”
As an example of recent research, Cole cited a study in which scientists transplanted fecal matter from an obese and depressed human into mice with sterile guts.
“Just by putting that bacteria into the mouse, without changing diet, without changing exercise, without changing anything else, within two weeks, the mouse becomes grossly obese and depressed,” she said.
While Cole is primarily concerned with the overconsumption of refined sugar as it relates to gut flora and overall health, she said many other factors have contributed to the destruction of the microbiome in our bodies and all around us over the past 30 years, including the genetic alteration of crops like wheat, and the overuse of pesticides, herbicides, and antibiotics.
While this all might sound rather bleak, Cole believes people do not have to succumb to an unhealthy and inflamed gut. She offers several tips to her patients on a regular basis:
Cut back on processed food.
“I tell my patients to shop on the outer edges of the supermarket. Don’t buy from the middle aisles, because that’s where all of the junk is. Things like cake mixes and even store-bought bread are filled with emulsifiers to make them smoother, and those are things that destroy the lining in your gut and lead to bowel disease… Things like Pop-Tarts and Lucky Charms and all the other junk cereals, even though they might say they have a lot of nutritional value, they just perpetuate the inflammation-producing environment in the gut.”
Skip the soda.
“Soda is one of the worst things ever. It’s like liquid death. You can say nothing redeeming about it. It’s just empty calories and concentrated sugar. I often tell my patients that if they can just stop the soda, they can drop ten pounds in a week or two, easily. Diet soda is even worse because of all the chemicals. Gatorade and energy drinks like Monster are awful for you, too. Just drink water.”
Eat organic food.
Cole recommends at least buying organic versions of produce named in the “Dirty Dozen,” an annually updated list of the most pesticide-laden foods, including strawberries, apples, pears, sweet bell peppers, spinach, grapes, tomatoes, celery, nectarines, peaches, cherries, and potatoes.
“Look for food that is locally sourced and raised correctly. Grass-fed beef. Free-range chickens. Fish that is not farm-raised. You are what you eat, and your food source is what it eats, too.”
Supplement with probiotics.
Cole is a big fan of kefir, a cultured dairy drink, and kombucha, a fermented tea drink, both of which contain a complex variety of probiotics.
“A healthy diet including things like kefir, kombucha, kimchi, and yogurts — live, living foods — that’s how we evolved for thousands of years … when it comes to probiotics, the more complex the better. That’s why kefir and kombucha are great. If you’re taking a prepackaged probiotic, buy something different every time and change it up. You want as much diversity in the gut as you can get.”
Take baby steps.
Cole acknowledges that it is not easy to break old habits when you’re used to eating sugar-laden processed foods.
“It’s hard to give it up because sugar lights up the same area of the brain as things like heroin, alcohol, cocaine and sex — the pleasure center of the brain. So I recommend doing it in baby steps. You can’t do it all at once or you set yourself up for failure.
“If you’re drinking two or three sodas per day, drop one and start drinking water or tea or kombucha instead. As you start to improve your diet and you start to see changes, you start to feel better and you want to keep going. Any type of habit takes about six months to establish. Quick fixes don’t work. You have to look at this as the long haul. It has to be a change of attitude and a change of lifestyle. It has to be something you want to do.”
