Bacteria-The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly…
How a healthy gut can be your best friend, but can turn friends into enemies.
Your gut is home to an insane amount of living bacteria. We help you sort it all out, and the difference between the good ones and the bad ones. Hint: You have some control over them.
Look down at your gut. You see your midsection there? From your ribs to the top of your hips, it's really not that far. And the width, despite how you might feel about your midsection, it’s really not that wide inside either.
That small little space alone is home to about 100 trillion living bacteria. Yes, 100 trillion. For a concept of the size of this colony, the entire world has only 7.6 billion people.
This idea grosses a lot of people out. We’re told how terrible bacteria are, and have a million products and pills to get rid of them. They are sworn enemies of humanity. Like most things in life, it’s existence isn’t that simple.
The phrase E. colimakes people go wide-eyed, and think of terrible stories on the nightly news. Well, guess what? You already have it.
There are multiple strains of Escherichia coli, and most of them are completely harmless, living in your gut and contributing to beneficial functions, like proper digestion. There are a few strains, one in particular, E. coli, O157:H7, that cause hospitalizations and deaths every year. Sometimes, who you think are your enemies can actually be your friends.
But even your friends can sometimes turn into enemies. Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO) is a disorder where the normally friendly bacteria in your digestive system begin to get out of control and grow in excessive number, causing a wide range of symptoms from inflammation to weight loss, or simply presenting as chronic diarrhea. The causes aren’t fully understood, but it may be caused in part by a malfunction in gastric acid secretion, which keeps bacteria in check when functioning normally. Malfunctions in the immune system, or issues with gut motility (the movement of your intestines that causes food to move through your system) could also contribute.
While bacterial friends and enemies may appear different than they first seem, there are some things you can do that increase your chances of keeping peace and balance.
Ingest probiotic rich foods. If you really want to become an expert on this as well you can hop on over to our other blogs about probiotics and learn a ton more. But drinking things like Seek North Kombucha, eating fermented foods, and making sure you get enough beneficial fiber that support the thriving of your good bacteria is a good start. So, if you’re here, you’re probably on the right track, and we’d say you should probably keep chugging.
Avoid excessive sugar. We’re sad about this one too. But diets high in sugars can upset the microbiome balance, and even increase the above-mentioned intestinal permeability. Drink and eat low sugar things (kombucha counts too), and your whole body will thank you - there’s a ton of research behind this - not just your family of gut bacteria.
Chill out. Stress has been linked to a whole host of gastrointestinal imbalances and disorders, as well as being implicated in intestinal permeability. Take a walk, meditate, hug your friend, listen to music, and smile more often. Or, you know, visit one of our pop-up booch demos and see our cute, smiling faces too.
Balance your diet. Nutrient deficiencies, lack of fiber intake, and diets excessively high in fats and animal proteins has been shown to have effects on gut health and your intestinal health in general too. Not that we’re trying to convert you, but those with a vegetarian diet are shown to have drastically different gut bacteria populations, usually for the better. It’s also never been shown that eating more fruits and veggies would be bad advice.
Bacteria isn’t all bad, but it’s not all good either. And sometimes the lines can even blur. However, by trying to keep your gut in balance by healthy behaviors and a diet full of probiotic rich foods, fruits, and vegetables, you have a decent amount of control over what can happen in your gut. Just like the bacteria in you, it’s not all bad news, but it’s not all good either.