5 Foods that damage your digestive System

5 foods that damage digestion

For every one human cell, there are 10 bacteria. Many of these bacteria live inside the intestines—mostly the large intestine. They are especially fond of the gel-like mucus that your intestinal cells secrete.

The proteins in gluten are pro-inflammatory. They destroy the gut lining and make it “leaky.”

White blood cells are members of your defense team. Besides bacteria and yeast, you will find specialized white blood cells in the mucosal lining of your digestive tract. Even more of your immune system lies just beneath the intestinal wall, in a mass of lymph tissue.

At any one time:

• Drinking regular or diet soda can disrupt your delicate inner ecosystem. Both natural and artificial sweeteners trigger an inflammatory response and negatively affect bacteria and yeast in the digestive tract.
• Your immune system communicates with the bacteria and yeast in your gut.
• The bacteria and yeast communicate with your immune system.
• Mucosal intestinal cells can send signals of distress or balance to other mucosal tissue (for example, within the lungs or birth canal).
• Your immune system and inflammatory signaling speak to the rest of your body.

This is your inner ecosystem. The yeast and bacteria that help to create your inner ecosystem evolve with you. In fact, they are so important to your health, the balance of your immune system, and your survival that scientists have coined your inner ecosystem the “forgotten organ.” (1)

Like any organ in the human body, your inner ecosystem is susceptible to injury and disease.

And unfortunately, stress from the environment or even diet can easily damage this “organ.” Signs to look out for include the common hallmarks of poor digestion, like:

• Heartburn
• Constipation or diarrhea
• Intestinal pain or cramping
• Gas

The reality is that poor digestion can be silent. In other words, you may think that your digestive tract is healthy—meanwhile, you have unexplained migraines, anxiety, depression, joint pain, eczema, allergies, or acne.

One of the best ways to take care of your inner ecosystem is to know which favorite foods (or drinks) can stir up the most trouble.

Top 5 Foods to Avoid

1. Soda Pop: Whether your soda is naturally or artificially sweet, studies agree that the sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, or synthetic sweeteners in soda change how gut bacteria metabolize energy. (2) They also trigger an inflammatory response and alter (for the worse) the communities of bacteria and yeast living in your digestive tract. (3)

2. Cereal Grains: This means whole grains and refined flours that are used to make bread, pasta, cakes, and crackers. Cereal grains contain gluten and other nutrient inhibitors. As it turns out, the proteins in gluten are pro-inflammatory. They destroy the gut lining and make it “leaky.” (4)(5)

3. Vegetable Oils: This includes oils like canola, soybean, corn, and sometimes even olive oil. While not a food per-se, vegetable oils are ubiquitous in processed foods and restaurant fare. The problem? All of these oils are liquid at room temperature. This indicates that they are mostly made up of polyunsaturated fats. According to the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the breakdown of polyunsaturated fats is “one important mechanism involved in the pathogenesis of inflammation, cancer, and atherosclerosis.” (6)

This breakdown occurs during the manufacture of vegetable oils, during storage, and during cooking. Olive oil makes the list because many people cook with olive oil. Olive oil is rich in mono-unsaturated fats, making it modestly heat-stable but not suitable for cooking. Coconut oil and red palm oil do not make the list because they are made up of mostly saturated fats. Saturated fats can withstand high temperatures, making them ideal cooking oils.

4. Coffee: Not only does coffee trigger the release of stress hormones, we are also learning that it contains a protein very similar to a protein found in wheat gluten. This is the same protein that the immune system reacts to. In a nutshell: The immune system can “mistake” the protein in coffee for the protein in wheat—your body may respond to coffee with the exact same inflammatory response that it has with gluten. This is called a cross-reaction.

If you are not getting results from your gluten-free and casein-free diet, you may want to nix the coffee. A study published this January in Food and Nutrition found that coffee isn’t the only culprit. The proteins in milk, oats, corn, and rice are also at greater risk for being tagged by your immune system as gluten. (7) Interestingly, researchers found that instant coffee was the most cross-reactive of all forms (and brands) of coffee.

5. Beer, Wine, and Spirits: Beer is made with cereal grains that contain gluten. As a fermented beverage, beer also contains living organisms that can feed Candida yeast overgrowth. Both gluten and Candida contribute to leaky gut. As far as wine and other spirits go, it looks like alcohol itself can irritate the gut lining.

Research has found that alcohol directly damages cells along the digestive tract. (8) Alcohol also drives inflammation in the gut and makes it leaky. (9) Finally, alcohol changes your inner ecosystem and can contribute to bacterial overgrowth, or dysbiosis. (10)(11)

6 Healing Benefits of Probiotic

6 Healing Benefits Of Probiotics

For most people, the mention of probiotics conjures up images of yogurt. But don’t dismiss the microbes as a marketing gimmick or food fad. The latest probiotic research suggests that live-active cultures of these friendly bacteria can help to prevent and treat a wide variety of ailments.

"There is an increasing interest in probiotic interventions," wrote the authors of one of the most recent studies, a meta-analysis of previous research in a recent issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Those researchers found that probiotics were particularly useful against a common gastrointestinal problem: antibiotic-associated diarrhea (AAD). But studies show that probiotics can help with a great deal more -- warding off infection and boosting immune systems, as well as helping to improve women’s health and perhaps even fighting obesity.

The word "probiotic" is a compound of two Greek words: "pro," to signify promotion of and "biotic," which means life. Their very definition is something that affirms life and health. That's true even by modern standards: the World Health Organization defines a probiotic as any living microorganism that has a health benefit when ingested. Similarly, the USDA defines a probiotic as "any viable microbial dietary supplement that beneficially affects the host."

That doesn't mean that all probiotics, or probiotic-containing foods are created equal. So what should you look for? "There is a lot of 'noise' in this space as more and more 'food products' are coming out with Probiotics," Dr. Shekhar K. Challa, a gastroenterologist and the author of Probiotics For Dummies tells The Huffington Post. "Unfortunately it is impossible to quantitate the CFU's of probiotics in most food products."

CFUs -- or colony-forming units -- is a microbiological term that describes the density of viable bacteria in a product. In other words, the CFU tells you how rich in probiotics a food actually is -- and how much will be available to your body.

Dr. Challa recommends the following unpasteurized probiotic rich foods:

• Plain unflavored yogurt
• Kefir
• Sauerkraut
• Miso
• Pickles
• Tempeh
• Kimchi and
• Kombucha tea.

So what can probiotics help you with?

Digestive Health

Each of us has more than 1,000 different types of bacteria that live in our digestive tracts, helping us to break down food and absorb nutrients. But when we take antibiotics -- medicine that is designed to kill destructive, illness-causing bacteria -- the drugs can also kill the healthy intestinal flora that helps us digest. About 30 percent of the patients who take antibiotics report suffering from diarrhea or some other form of gastrointestinal distress, according to the recent JAMA study on probiotics and antibiotic-associated diarrhea. As a result, doctors commonly prescribe taking probiotics to "repopulate" the digestive tract with healthful bacteria. The study found that it was a viable solution for many.

But probiotics can also help with other types of digestive issues. Research has shown that probiotics can be helpful for people with irritable bowel syndrome, or IBS -- a hard-to-treat condition that can have a range of intestinal symptoms, such as abdominal pain, cramps, bloating, diarrhea and constipation. In one study, female IBS patients experienced some alleviation of symptoms like abdominal pain and irregularity when they were given a supplement of the bacterial strain, Bifidobacterium infantis.

Even for those without an urgent problem, probiotics can help with overall digestive management. Challa argues in his book, Probiotics For Dummies, that good bacteria help "crowd out" bad bacteria. That's because the intestine is lined with adherence sites where bacteria latches on. If the sites are populated with good-for-you microbes, there's no place for a harmful bacterium to latch on.

Urinary Health

Probiotics make a nice compliment to antibiotics among people who suffer from urinary tract infections, according to the research.

What's more, there's emerging evidence that regular probiotics can help prevent bad bacteria from invading the urinary tract by maintaining a population of healthy bacteria on the tract's adherence sites.

Infections of the urinary tract are extremely common, especially in women. Most infections disappear with antibiotics, but about 30 to 40 percent might return, according to literature from the University of Maryland Medical Center.

Allergies

Allergy research is still preliminary, but at least one large, high quality study found a relationship between women taking probiotics during pregnancy and a 30 percent reduction in the instance of childhood eczema (an early sign of allergies) in their infants.

Researchers selected women who had a history of seasonal allergies -- or whose partners had histories of allergies. The infants who received probiotics in-vitro also had 50 percent higher levels of tissue inflammation, which is thought to trigger the immune system and reduce allergy incidence.

Women's Health

Just like the digestive tract, the vagina relies on a precarious balance of good and bad bacteria. When that balance is off, it can result in one of two very common, though thoroughly uncomfortable infections: bacterial vaginosis and yeast infections. In fact, bacterial vaginosis can actually lead to a yeast infection.

Some small studies have found that L. acidophilius can help prevent infection, manage an already active one or support antibiotics as a treatment, though it's worth noting that the probiotics were taken as vaginal suppositories, rather than orally in food.

Probiotics may also have a special role in maternal health, as pregnant women are particularly susceptible to vaginal infections. And bacterial vaginosis has been indicated as a contributing factor to pre-term labor, making probiotics a potential boon for fetal health.

Immunity

Surprisingly, one of the main functions of healthful bacteria is to stimulate immune response.

By eating probiotic-rich foods and maintaining good intestinal flora, a person can also help to maintain a healthy immune system. And that has real world effects: for example, in one small study of students, those who were given a fermented dairy drink (instead of milk) displayed increased production from lymphocytes -- a marker of immune response.

Obesity

In 2006, Stanford University researchers found that obese people had different gut bacteria than normal-weighted people -- a first indication that gut flora plays a role in overall weight.

Some preliminary research shows that probiotics can help obese people who have received weight loss surgery to maintain weight loss. And in a study of post-partum women who were trying to lose abdomnial fat, the addition of lactobacillusand bifidobacterium capsules helped reduce waist circumference.

It's still unclear how probiotics play a role in weight loss -- and there is some controversy about how significant the probiotics-associated weight loss is.

But as long as the probiotics source is low-calorie and healthful, itself, it is an innocuous method to attempt.