Today’s world is hard on your gut. In fact, it’s downright hostile…
It starts with a modern diet that’s high in fake fats, chemical additives and carbage — the starchy, processed and over-industrialized junk that passes for food today.
Not only do these fake foods hurt your health, they destroy your gut. Let me explain…
Your body is host to millions of microbes. Your gut is teeming with them. You get them at birth and they stay with you your whole life.
We call this sprawling community of bugs your gut “flora.” Sure, some can cause disease, just as Koch found out. But many of them are on your side. They help activate your immune system and keep you from getting infections. They help you digest your food and turn it into vitamins.
In other words, your gut flora is a delicate balance of good and bad.
And our toxic food supply feeds bad bacteria and kill off the good ones.
On top of that, antibiotics, steroids and other drugs wipe out the good bugs you need to crowd out the bad bugs.
And when good bugs are swamped by the bad ones, it’s a perfect setup for disease. Often it starts with GI symptoms. You get gas, bloating, constipation and diarrhea. Over time, that can lead to very serious conditions like inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
IBD includes things like ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease. These long-term conditions cause inflammation in the gut. And people with IBD also have a higher risk of colorectal cancer.
Just in the U.S. some three million people suffer with IBD. But modern medicine is stumped by it. They attack the digestive tract with drugs and even surgery. They just don’t understand the important role of diet and gut flora.
For decades, I’ve been saying that IBD can be reversed with good food and good bacteria. And research is finally catching up with what I’ve been saying all along. In fact, it can be as easy as eating a handful of strawberries every day.
A brand-new study from the University of Massachusetts looked at a group of mice with IBD. Some were given a regular diet. Others ate the same diet but added whole strawberry powder. The amount of powder the mice ate was equivalent to about just three-quarters of a cup of fresh strawberries for a human. The results were amazing…
Mice eating the strawberry powder saw their IBD symptoms improve significantly. They stopped losing weight. Their bloody diarrhea improved. Inflammation in their colon cooled. But that wasn’t all…
The bad balance of gut bacteria in the mice was reversed.1 In other words, strawberries restored a healthy balance of gut flora!
An easy way to get your daily dose of this miraculous fruit is simply to eat a small bowl of fresh strawberries with a couple of tablespoons of grass-fed heavy whipping cream for dessert.
But be sure you choose organic strawberries.
This little berry is one of the most contaminated foods in the world. According to the Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) Shopper’s Guide, 98% of conventionally grown strawberry samples had detectable levels of pesticide. And 40% of all strawberries had traces of 10 or more pesticides.
But strawberries are just one way to bring your gut bacteria into balance.
Balance Your Gut with Nature’s “Prebiotics”
- Eat your way to a healthy gut. Some of the best foods that promote a healthy gut flora are onions, garlic, asparagus, artichokes and almonds.
Some foods also include a fiber called “inulin.” This fiber resists digestion from the small intestine. It reaches the large intestine intact, where your flora gets the most benefit from it. Bananas, chicory root, dandelion greens, leeks, peas, and beans all have this type of fiber.
The Hadza — one of the last remaining hunter-gatherers in all of Africa — use their native diets to keep their guts healthy. In fact, they have the world’s strongest gut — or more specifically, the community of hundreds of billions of microscopic bacteria, viruses and fungi that live there — thanks to the primal diet they feed it with.For fiber, they rely on wild berries like Kongorobi. They have 20 times the fiber and polyphenols of cultivated berries. They also dig up a few high-fiber tubers they forage and toss on the fire.
- Try the powerful gut-healing herb. I also often recommend a powerful Ayurvedic gut-healing herb formula called triphala. It’s made by blending dried and powdered rinds and flesh of amalaki (or Indian gooseberry), haritaki (from the terminalia tree) and bibhitaki (from the bahera tree).
This combination forms a powerful gastric healer. It acts as a gentle, safe and highly effective detoxifier for the intestine, colon, blood and liver. It’s an ancient fix for constipation, indigestion, gastroenteritis, and more.2
You can find triphala powder in almost any Indian grocery store. Use it to brew a comforting cup of tea with some ghee and honey. Drink it on an empty stomach before meals or at bedtime.You can also take triphala as a supplement. I recommend 1,000 mg a day. Or, look for a liquid extract. Take one dropperful in 1 to 2 ounces of water or juice, one to three times daily before food.
To Your Good Health,
Al Sears, MD, CNS
References
1. American Chemical Society. Strawberries could help reduce harmful inflammation in the colon. https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/newsreleases/2018/august/strawberries-could-help-reduce-harmful-inflammation-in-the-colon.html Updated August 20, 2018. Accessed September 4, 2018.
2. Reddy TC, et al. “Kinetics and docking studies of a COX-2 inhibitor isolated from Terminalia bellerica fruits.” Protein Pept Lett. 2010;17(10):1251-1257.