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Fall in Love with Your Heart and Gut

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  Celebrate American Heart Month   with a Healthy Gut As February draws to a chilly close, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute as well as the American Heart Association remind us to reflect on our healthy lifestyles to prevent the risk of heart disease by celebrating American Heart Month. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, and is widespread throughout all demographics. However, heart disease is considered the most preventable disease.  American Heart Month is celebrated every year to motivate us to take proactive measures in our heart health and stay consistent with these healthy lifestyles. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) provides us some ways to take steps to keep a healthy heart. Understand Your Risk of Heart Disease -- Preventing heart disease requires knowing what your personal risks are and what to do to lower those risks. Risk factors are conditions or habits that make a person more likely to develop a disease. Choose Heart-Healt
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Mind Your Gut Health

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Consequences Of Your Gut Health Can Contribute To Cognitive Behaviors. The microbes in your gut are involved directly and indirectly to produce several neurotransmitters (messengers in the nervous system). Your bacteria can stimulate or produce these molecules, which then can be interpreted by our nervous system through different mechanisms. How has gut health and behavior been studied? In Paris, France, scientists at the Institut Pasteur discovered that stress-induced dysbiosis (imbalance of the gut) has consequences to rodent behavior.  One potential mechanism demonstrated that the gut microbiome can induce depressive-like behaviors in mice by altering the central nervous system's production of important signaling molecules. These molecules, a special kind of fats, act as messengers for the nervous system, and by affecting its production the gut microbiome is now recognized as an important player in disorders like depression and in our overall mood.  Researchers also found out th
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Your Gut Health Can Predict Your Body's Response to COVID-19

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Lab studies suggest your gut health may play a role in COVID severity. The Coronavirus or COVID-19 has dominated worldwide throughout 2020 and predicted to take over much of the beginning of 2021. But with the vaccine rolling out steadily across the United States, the country can see what could be the light at the end of a long tunnel.  Although the wait to receive the vaccine may take some time, it is notable to stay proactive in preventative measures such as; wearing a face mask, staying six-feet apart from others, and washing your hands for 20-seconds.  However, Did you know your gut health could impact your body's response to COVID-19? According to a study conducted by The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong, researchers were able to find how our gut microorganisms likely influence how our bodies respond to COVID-19. Researchers used shotgun sequencing to extract DNA from stool samples of 100 patients infected with COVID-19 and compared 27 of those patients'
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So What About My Gut?

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  WHAT IS GUT HEALTH? AND WHY DOES IT MATTER? Approximately 100 trillion bacteria, both good and bad, reside in your intestines and stomach. Collectively, this community is referred to as the microbiome, or less formally, the gut. The bacteria in your gut consists of roughly 1,000 species and 5,000 different strains. The microbiome plays a key part in the digestive system, but this role is only the foundation of what this ecosystem of microbes in our bodies can do. Researchers have found connections from the good and bad gut bacteria to your body's functions that go far beyond digestion, like behavior or mood. Why Does My Gut Bacteria Matter? Although science has not indicated which bacterial strains carry the most importance to your overall health, your microbiome as a whole plays a vital role in: Metabolizing nutrients from supplements and foods Vitamin Production Defense against intestinal infections Prevention of chronic illness Treating diseases Weight management Immune functi
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How Your Diet Impacts Your Gut Health

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How Your Diet Impacts Your Gut Health What you eat plays a huge role in indicating what kind of microbes live in your gut and how diverse your gut microbiome could be. Because of this, your food preferences, the lifestyle choices you make, and other external factors like your genetics create a collection of bacteria in your gut microbiome that is truly unique to you!  Why is it important to have a diversity of microbes in your gut? According to the Havard School of Public Health , "your gut is a major site of immune activity and the production of antimicrobial proteins." Therefore, your diet is a major contributor to determine what kind of microbes live there. Researchers have found that a diet high in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes supports the growth and maintenance of beneficial bacteria in our gut. These beneficial bacteria can also play key roles in how our bodies function like stimulate immune cell activity, reduce inflammation, and impact our overall moo
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New Year, New Gut

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  Starting off the new year can be exciting or intimidating if you decide that your new year's resolution is to lose weight or improve your overall health. A great step toward your weight loss goals is to look into your gut health. By checking your gut microbiome, you have the opportunity to analyze the bacteria in your gut that may cause certain symptoms such as; gas, constipation, continence, or even inflammation. You will be surprised to find that not only is your gut microbiome impacted by your diet, but your daily lifestyle choices as well. WHAT DEFINES A HEALTHY GUT? How do you know if your gut microbiome is healthy? It all comes down to the diversity of your gut bacteria. Studies have shown that generally healthy people have a greater diversity of microorganisms in their gut than those who aren’t as healthy. However, further research is needed to determine whether low bacterial diversity increases the risk of disease, or if a disease may decrease bacterial diversity. Microbi
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Six Ways to Heal Your Gut After the Holidays

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“It’s the holiday season,” and we all know what that means; kiss our healthy eating habits goodbye and say hello to the abundance of comfort foods sprawled out across the family dinner table. Christmas cookies, stuffing, and sugar plums;  It’s fun while it lasts, but how can we get our digestive health back on the healthy track? Here are six relatively simple tips to restore your gut health that could optimize your microbiome health: Take a probiotic supplement: Probiotic supplements and food sources with beneficial bacteria will improve the number of good bacteria in your gut. Yogurt, kimchi, and sauerkraut are all good food sources of probiotics. Eat a balanced diet: Avoid excess dairy, red meat, and refined sugars. Make sure you eat enough whole foods and fiber. Your microbiome feeds off the remnants in the colon after the amino acids, and other nutrients are digested, so it’s important to consume enough complex fiber instead of processed foods. Get enough sleep, water, and exer
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