Introduction

In today’s article, you will find simple nutrition strategies to improve your gut condition. If you struggled in the past with any related gut problem, this will help you understand reasons behind your problem and eventually with little determination you will get rid off of your pains and discomforts.

Quick Overview

Here is a quick overview of the topics you will learn about:

• Gluten
• Lactose
• FODMAPs
• Processed Food
• Alcohol

How to repair my gut with simple nutrition strategy?  

Process of repairing gut with simple nutrition strategy starts with elimination of following factors…

Certain types of food are more likely to bring more damage than actual support in repairing guts condition. We look for a magic solution by picking new and new diets without realising the common connection between them.

Although all nutrition setups have something in common, ask yourself; what makes a great nutrition plan, and how should you choose the one that suits you better?

To answer this question and repair your guts and enjoy full benefits of healthy gastrointestinal tract. You need to understand what food creates a destruction and we should avoid what type of food at all cost.  

Today you will learn about simple nutrition strategy, which can you can apply into your specific diet, whenever you follow a diet plan like; The Atkins Diet, The Dukan Diet, The Paleo Diet etc. All of them will be suitable as long as you will adapt and decide to…

Eliminate Gluten; why could you include it in your strategy?

There are many reasons behind elimination of gluten as the first step towards your healing process. I know, it’s sounds harsh when you think about it but unfortunately wheat, along with rye and barley are hard to digest.

However, the chief enemy hidden within actual further breakdown of gluten, where we can find a class of protein called Gliadin.  

Gliadin has a direct negative effect on increasing production of Zonulin, and higher level of Zonulin automatically affects the size of openings of tight junctions.

What is Zonulin? 

Zonulin is one protein, alongside claudin and occludin. They are the key components of our tight junctions that establish the barrier, that controls flow of molecules in the intercellular space between the cells and epithelium.

As far as Zonulin level is optimal for a human, then our tight junction can perform and act as the barrier and be ready whenever uninvited guests are not welcome.

“For serum zonulin, a median value of 34 ng/mL (± 14 ng/mL) is declared as normal for healthy persons. A reference value of 50 µg/g for normal fecal calprotectin values was taken as normal.” 

To visualise you the functions of tight junctions, you can think of the airport where to get on your aircraft, you need to process with security gates. As long as you don’t possess prohibited items you can move forward and eventually get to your destination. If you possessed something, which not supposed to be with you, then you will be automatically stopped and immediately punished.

Then, imagine Zonulin switches the power off and security gates are wide open with no chance of spotting who has any of prohibited items. As you probably guessing, it’s just matters of time where someone will carry banned items to the airplane causing enormous risks.

Tight junctions are our security gates, which assess who’s good and who’s bad. Providing maximum security for our body in prevention from bad bacteria, pathogens and other antigens.

We can find gluten in following products: 

• Breads and Breaded Food
• Pasta and Noodles
• Crackers
• Cereal and Granola
• Oats (unless certified Gluten Free)
• Soups
• Soy Sauce
• Anything else that includes “wheat flour” as an ingredient.

Eliminate Lactose; Why could you include it in your strategy? 

Process of repairing guts also include elimination of sugars. Lactose is a milk sugar, which is hard to digest by up to 75% of adult population globally.  

As the primary reason behind weak toleration of lactose is that when you grow and start consuming other types of food, you decrease production of enzyme called lactase. Enzyme responsible for breaking down of lactose.

Another weak point of dairy products is a protein called A1 Casein, which also is hard to process by our guts. This is because of the formation of powerful inflammatory opiate known as Casomorphin, resulting in high releasing of histamine.

Within your nutrition strategy, you need to understand also the elimination of high FODMAPs, which you should include in healing your guts. Lactose is one ingredient on the list alongside of other hardly digestible small carbs.

We can find lactose in the following dairy products: 

• Milk – many milk; including cow’s milk and goat’s milk.
• Yogurts–including Greek yogurt and soft-serve frozen yogurts.
• Cheese – types such as; cottage cheese, cream cheese and curd cheese.
• Margarine
• Buttermilk   
• Whipping cream, cream (min.10% fat).
• Anything else that includes “lactose” as an ingredient.

Eliminate FODMAP Ingredients; why certain food could be removed in your strategy? 

FODMAPs are short-chain carbohydrates resistant to digestion. When you are trying to repair your guts condition and provide a simple, quick solution you need to consider eliminating ingredients, which are more likely to get fermented.

Below you can find the five types of FODMAP: 

• Fructans  – you can find in wheat and many vegetables like asparagus, onions and garlic.
• Galactooligosaccharides (GOS) – primarily found in legumes, including beans, chickpeas and lentils.
• Fructose–a simple sugar found in fruits.
• Lactose–as you already know, that lactose is the milk sugar not allowed in low FODMAP procedure to repair your guts health.
• Polyols – in most sugar alcohols ending in “-ol” like; xylitol, erythritol, sorbitol, maltitol and mannitol.

When “fermentable oligo-, di-, mono-saccharides and polyols” (FODMAPs) reach the bottom of your gastrointestinal track, they are more likely to interact with bacteria and produce hydrogen.

Hydrogen production may lead to instant bloating, stomach cramps, constipation and pains around your stomach area. In worst-case scenarios, you are likely to experience diarrhea and constipation due to osmotic pressure by drawing water into your intestine caused by high FODMAPs.

Specifically, elimination of FODMAP ingredients will be necessary for anyone who struggles with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) but also with Leaky Guts Syndrome (LGS). For fact of reduction of food, which is pro inflammatory. By giving your guts a break and allowing it to restore, you can shorten the time between our repairing process.

We can find high FODMAPs in following products: 

Vegetables: 

• Artichokes
• Asparagus
• Beets
• Brussels sprouts
• Cauliflower
• Celery
• Peas
• Scallions (white parts)
• Shallots
• Snow peas
• Sugar snap peas
• Garlic
• Leeks
• Mushrooms
• Okra
• Onions

Legumes: 

• Chickpeas
• Lentils
• Kidney beans
• Baked beans
• Black-eyed peas
• Butter beans
• Soybeans
• Split peas
• Lima beans

Fruits: 

• Peaches
• Pears
• Plums and prunes
• Pomegranates
• Watermelon
• Apples
• Apricots
• Blackberries
• Cherries
• Grapefruit
• Mango
• Nectarines

Grains: 

• Farro
• Rye
• Semolina
• Wheat
• Barley
• Couscous

Lactose: 

• Margarine
• Milk (cow, goat, sheep)
• Soft cheese, including cottage cheese and ricotta
• Buttermilk
• Cream
• Custard
• Ice cream
• Yogurt (regular and Greek)

Sweeteners: 

• Isomalt
• Maltitol
• Mannitol
• Molasses
• Sorbitol
• Xylitol
• Agave
• Fructose
• High fructose corn syrup
• Honey

Eliminate Processed Food; Why could you not consume it? 

Your microbiome will always react to the food you provide to it. Not without reason, we call the process food “junk food”. This food is mainly including 4 key ingredients; gluten, refined sugars, trans fats and overwhelming elements of “improvers”. 

‘Improvers’ including usage of extra enhancers like; artificial flavours, colours and other additives to make products hyper-palatable.

The biggest issue with this kind of mix of pro negative nutrition elements will combine every single inflammatory ingredient into a piece of ticking bomb. As a result, you create an environment for bad bacteria.

As the same as you provide fibre-rich types of food, your microbiome will strengthen with beneficial bacteria and lead you to healthy life. The same as you provide the opposite, you will support the enemy, not your friends.

Researchers who analysed stool samples from different cultures come to a single conclusion. People living in high developed countries–where access to highly processed food is common. Comparing them to people living in less industrialised hunter-gather cultures shown a strong pattern.

People living in less industrialised hunter-gather cultures had their microbiome highly diverse, with no sign of guts problems in contrast to modern countries with access to highly changed food.

Eliminate Alcohol; Why is it so bad for our bacterial flora?  

Heavy usage of alcohol directly affects the state of our bacterial flora by overgrowing of harmful bacteria. Studies show that alcohol promotes both dysbiosis and bacterial overgrowth, which affects the increase in releasing of endotoxins.

Endotoxins are part of the cell wall of gram-negative bacteria, where higher releasing of them may eventually lead to activation of proteins and immune cells that cause inflammation.

Therefore, even by regular consumption of alcohol, you are more likely to create a negative environment for bacteria in gastrointestinal track. This also includes a smaller portion but regular in the form of every two, three days a week.

How does the alcohol impact our guts?  

“The quick answer is by disrupting the epithelial cells themselves (transepithelial permeability) and by disrupting the spaces between the epithelial cells (para-cellular permeability), which comprise tight junctions, the cytoskeleton, and several associated proteins. Trans-epithelial permeability is caused by direct cellular damage”. For example:

• Alcohol causes cell death (Pijls et al. 2013), which leads to changes in the intestine that include mucosal ulcerations, erosions, and loss of epithelium mainly at the villi tips (Rocco et al. 2014);
• Acetaldehyde forms DNA adducts that cause direct cellular damage (Malaguarnera et al. 2014); and
• Reactive oxygen species (ROS) released during alcohol metabolism cause direct cellular damage via oxidative stress (Forsyth et al. 2014).”

ref link: https://www.arcr.niaaa.nih.gov/arcr382/article01.htm

 

Conclusion: 

Whenever you keep with a strategy plan, make sure you include elimination of anti-nutrients. The same as fresh good quality food can bring many positives and benefits, the same as the opposite can bring a devastation to our guts and microbiome.

Understanding simple elimination tricks can be helpful when you have been struggling for some time with your guts condition. You should understand by now, that as long as you will abuse anti-food, you will not fully repair your guts health.

Just to recap again; those are elements to eliminate from today, if you are starting your procedure of simple nutrition strategy:

• Gluten 
• Lactose 
• FODMAP’s 
• Processed Food 
• Alcohol  

As it’s the beginning of your change. Apply these simple strategies for at least 3 months to notice a major improvement. Microbiome balance takes some time to progress with the right ratio of good bacteria.

When you complete your 3 months of elimination of anti-nutrients, you could re-apply them as a bonus. Controlling your guts allows you to be more flexible.

In the simple meaning, where your microbiome becomes balanced with good strains of bacteria and your tight junctions have started become tight and impermeable again. Where you stopped experiencing bloating and being annoyed after each meal, then you could apply a method of 80% of excellent food and 20% of treats and carry on with your healthy and happy life.

 

Which of anti-nutrient has been a nightmare for you to tolerate? Personally, I find gluten that brings the biggest irritation for my stomach. For this reason, I try to eliminate completely for my day-to-day diet.

Or maybe other anti-nutrients have been on your “no” list that you haven’t spotted on this article. Share your view in the comment and let me know if this article has been helpful 🙂

Coach Casp

Literature:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3384703/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6331146/

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/lactose-intolerance/symptoms-causes/syc-20374232

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/357/6353/802

https://www.arcr.niaaa.nih.gov/arcr382/article01.htm

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5154254/

https://www.ibsdiets.org/fodmap-diet/fodmap-food-list/