Do you think that there is nothing troublesome happening in your gut? No leaky gut, no constipation, no diarrhea but previously you are experiencing acne breakouts, allergies, fatigue, and eczema? Well, if that’s the case then you must be worried by now because I’m telling you, your gut is in big trouble.
The conditions mentioned above are signs that there is something wrong about your gut. The gut is very important for the overall health of the body. And this means having it checked is very important to determine its condition and need. The question right now is that, how do you check your gut health? To find the answer, keep reading.
Observe How Often You Get Sick
The easiest way to check your gut health is to observe the obvious signs of having a troubled gut. First, if you get sick a lot this may be a warning sign that your gut is in a bad condition. Why? Because according to a study, beyond 3 quarters of the body’s immune system is found in the gastrointestinal tract. Believe it, this is true.
Inspect For Skin Problems
Another thing that you must observe to check your gut health is to inspect if you are recently having skin problems. Skin problems like acne and eczema may probably a result of a poor gut health. You might ask if this is possible, well, yes it is. When your gastrointestinal tract is inflamed, it leads to poor digestion of food which may result in acne breakouts once it enters your bloodstream.
Check your Weight
Having trouble in losing weight may be caused by an unhealthy gut. Furthermore, we can say that a gut is unhealthy if it lacks good bacteria which is needed to stimulate good digestion of food in the body.
Investigate your Autoimmune Disease
One of the things that you must check to know if you are having an unhealthy gut is to investigate the cause of your Autoimmune Disease. These diseases are linked to having a poor gut health due to the fact that the immune system attacks healthy tissues. This happens as a result of having a small number of good bacteria in the gut. However, we indicated here that you must investigate the cause of these autoimmune diseases because there are other factors that affect its escalation. Some of those factors are overuse of medications, mold exposure, chronic stress, and genetics.
Conduct a Bowel Transit Time Test
What is this bowel transit time test we are talking about? This refers to the time consumed from swallowing the food we eat until its elimination from our bodies by the form of stool. This test can help you to see if you are experiencing constipation which is one of the signs that your gut is probably imbalanced in fermentable substrates. Also, if the transit time is very fast, diseases like Crohn’s might be the possible result. Crohn’s disease is the product of abnormal absorption of nutrients from the digestive tract. To conduct a bowel transit time test at the comfort of your home, here are some of the foods that you can use.
1. Sesame Seeds – put some sesame seeds in a glass of water then drink. Swallow the seeds whole then check your stool every time you defecate to calculate your bowel transit time.
2. Red Beets – cook a cup of red beets then eat. Raw or shredded is okay depending on which you prefer most.
3. Corn Kernels –a cup of cooked corn kernels can also be utilized to check your bowel transit time. Eat it alone apart from other foods.
Here’s the procedure on the whole process of bowel transit time test:
- Note the time you ate which food mentioned above you chose.
- Regularly check your stool after your defecate and see if the food you ate appears again.
Note: Red beets can make your urine looks pink.
Conclusion
These are the things that you need to consider to check your gut health. This list might be very limited; however, there are other more ways out there to see if your gut is still running healthy and fine. Moreover, the most important thing for you to do now is to keenly observe, inspect, check, and investigate your body for further signs and if you found a noteworthy condition, act right away and improve the overall health of your gut. Stand your ground, full alert, and hawk-eyed. Live well.
