Why gut health matters

Did you know that your gut health doesn’t just affect your digestive system? In fact, it can actually have a significant impact on your immune system – and even on your central nervous system.

This is all down to the make-up of your microbiome, the collection of living micro-organisms that colinise the human body. Your microbiome is something you’re born with, but you’re able to change it with dietary adjustments and the use of gut health supplements.

Gut health: understanding the microbiome

The microbiome is the collective name for all of the microbes (bacteria, fungi and other living micro-organisms) that live in your gut. Everyone’s individual microbiome is unique, but they all comprise both good bacteria and bad bacteria. Crucially, for a healthy gut, the good kind needs to outnumber the bad kind, leaving bad bacteria with no space to multiply.

Your microbiome is actually one of the most important parts of your body, insofar as it’s the location of many of the cells responsible for producing antibodies when you’re ill. It also spends a lot of time communicating with the rest of your body, especially your immune system.

This means that your microbiome could influence everything from your cholesterol to the health of your kidneys, and even your emotions by way of your central nervous system.

The microbiome helps you to break your food down into different nutrients as well, before putting them to work around your body, so it’s essential to keep yours diverse and healthy as possible.

Getting to know your gut

Stay in tune with your gut health, looking out for any signs that it’s not completely happy. These signs could include regular bloating, constipation or diarrhoea, feeling constantly fatigued, and even irritated skin. Eating a diet that’s very high in sugar could make some of these symptoms worse, so see if reducing your intake has an impact.

How to improve gut health

There are a number of other ways you can try to improve your gut health, including:

• Lowering your stress levels: because your gut health is so closely linked with your brain, heightened emotions can affect your stomach. Keep stress at bay by incorporating yoga into your exercise routine, or learn some breathing exercises to help keep your anxiety levels in check

• Eat more fibre or fermented foods: fibre-rich foods and fermented foods such as kimchi are great sources of good bacteria for your gut, and could help to keep your microbiome diverse and healthy

• Stay hydrated: drinking plenty of water is just as important for keeping your gut healthy as eating the right foods

• Check if you have a food intolerance: if the health of your gut is getting in the way of your day-to-day life, it’s a good idea to find out if there’s something else going on with your digestive system

• Try a probiotic supplement: gut health supplements contain live bacteria to help diversify your microbiome further

Digestive health supplements

At Garden of Life, you’ll find probiotics designed to target different health concerns thanks to the specific strains of live bacteria they contain – and even gut health supplements tailored to your gender.

Each of our probiotics supplements for gut health can support digestive and immune system health, as well as other aspects of your wellbeing.

Probiotic supplements for women

Women’s health needs can be very different to men’s, so you’ll find different probiotic strains across our gut health supplements. For example, our Probiotic Once Daily Women’s Capsules contain strains that can support vaginal health, and our Probiotic Women’s Blend Capsules can provide extra support to the urinary tract.

We also have Probiotic Once Daily Prenatal Capsules, which are designed to be taken during pregnancy and breastfeeding to promote immune and digestive health for both mother and baby.