Although its importance is often overlooked, the digestive system is one of our body’s most vital components - being responsible for both the removal of harmful toxins and the proper assimilation of the numerous essential nutrients that are needed to nourish your cells and maintain your good health. Unfortunately, there are a number of things that can negatively affect the delicate balance of our digestive health, including the excessive consumption of heavily processed or acidic foods.
Also included is a lack of pure, a deviation in overall body pH or an overgrowth of harmful fungi, like candida, which is understood to upset the delicate balance of your intestinal micro-flora, and kill off many of the good bacteria that are needed to produce important digestive enzymes.
When our digestive systems stop working properly, we stop being able to fully breakdown the nutrient compounds that are found in the food we eat, and quickly become deficient in a number of important nutrients as a result. The long-term effects of this are too varied to list, but a recent article published by Mind Body Green lists the short term effects of declining digestive health as:
Rapid weight loss
Frequent headaches
Fatigue
Irritable bowel syndrome
Cramps
Another frequently-referenced effect of declining digestive health is an inability to metabolise important alkaline minerals like calcium and potassium that are needed to keep your body’s internal buffer systems topped up. Without these important nutrients, we can experience deviations in overall body pH that can affect our concentration levels, our energy levels, and our general wellbeing.
As such, the proper maintenance of digestive health is absolutely essential if we want to enjoy lasting good health and wellbeing, particularly in terms of our energy levels and our body’s overall acid/alkaline balance.
How can we maintain digestive health?
According to Cristopher Vasey’s seminal book The Acid Alkaline Diet, the simplest and most effective way to maintain intestinal health is to cut down on the amount of processed, sugary or acidic foods that we consume. This will reduce the amount of stress that our digestive tract is under, and also help to prevent excessive damage to the delicate bacteria that reside in your intestines.
Altering your diet is by no means the only way to ensure a healthy gut though; Dr Batmagheldi’s book Your Bodies Many Cries for Water demonstrates that drinking healthy, alkaline water can have a profoundly beneficial impact on your intestinal health, and it is widely understood that supplementing your diet with healthy, plant-based vitamin supplements can also aid in the proper maintenance of the connective tissues lining your digestive tract.
A recent article on digestive health published by our friends at Vibrant Health also highlighted the important role that a probiotic supplement can play in encouraging good digestive health – particularly when it comes to the production of important digestive enzymes, and the suppression of harmful bacteria.
What are Probiotics?
Probiotics are beneficial micro-organisms that are understood to encourage the development of positive bacteria in the gut. Numerous in-vitro studies have shown that probiotics actively work to support the 500 species of beneficial micro fauna that are needed to secrete the digestive enzymes that break down complex carbohydrates and other nutrients in the gastrointestinal tract, and there’s also evidence to show that some species of probiotic can actively suppress the growth of harmful intestinal bacteria species as well.
Probiotics were once a staple part of our diet, but the introduction of heavily processed modern foods has removed many of the natural probiotic sources from our diet, and it’s now becoming increasingly necessary to turn to natural supplements in order to find these beneficial micro-organisms.
There are still some good sources of natural probiotics to be found worldwide – Kimchi, kefir and yoghurt all contain some small traces of probiotic activity, for example.
Many of Vibrant Health’s green food supplements also contain carefully selected probiotic strains, including Green Vibrance Powder and Maximum Vibrance Powder, and these plant-based supplements also have the advantage of containing a broad width of other micro and macro nutrients, which can help to nourish newly established probiotic colonies in the gut, and provide the alkaline minerals needed to help restore your digestive tract to optimum pH balance.
For more information on probiotics, or the importance of good digestive health, please use the contact form on our website to get in touch, or ring us on 01764 662111 where we will always be happy to advise. You will also find more information about the maintenance of good intestinal health in our alkaline diet eBook, which we’ve put together specifically to help people move their bodies back towards optimum health.
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