Your body contains a microbiota-dominated environment that promotes health and well-being. When this community of bacteria becomes imbalanced, it’s called dysbiosis, and it may lead to mild symptoms or severe diseases.
Dysbiosis has been linked to several non-communicable diseases, including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, as well as functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGIDs).
Furthermore, there is growing evidence tying dysbiosis with autoimmune conditions such as ankylosing spondylitis, psoriatic arthritis, and type 1 diabetes.
Dysbiosis can be treated using various strategies, including probiotic supplementation or nutritional changes. To optimize results from any such interventions, they must be tailored specifically to an individual’s endogenous gut microbiome in order to maximize benefits.
To learn more about gut dysbiosis and how it is treated, continue reading.
What Is Gut Dysbiosis?
Dysbiosis refers to an imbalance in the bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms living in your gut that are responsible for maintaining health. They’re important components in keeping you fit, but they can become unbalanced if your diet and lifestyle habits change too rapidly.
Unhealthy digestion can lead to numerous health issues, including Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), diarrhea, constipation, heartburn, bloating gas pains, and abdominal cramps. Furthermore, this increases your risk of infections, cancer, and other illnesses.
To help restore a healthier balance in your gastrointestinal bacteria, there are various measures you can take, such as altering your diet and avoiding certain foods and activities, taking a stool test to assess its diversity, or supplementing with probiotics or prebiotics to restore an ideal environment.
What Are the Symptoms of Gut Dysbiosis?
Gut dysbiosis occurs when your intestinal bacteria become imbalanced or harmful strains outnumber beneficial ones, leading to symptoms like IBS, IBD, and even depression.
Here are the common symptoms of gut dysbiosis:
- Bad breath
- Nausea
- Upset stomach
- Diarrhea
- Constipation
- Difficulty urinating
- Bloating
- Vaginal or rectal itching
- Chest pain
- Fatigue
- Rash or redness
- Having trouble thinking or concentrating
- Depression
- Anxiety
All these signs point towards your bacterial balance being off balance. If these occur, consult your healthcare provider as soon as possible to address them immediately.
What Causes Gut Dysbiosis?
There are some common contributing factors that lead to gut dysbiosis.
Exercise
Exercise has the ability to have an enormous effect on our microbiomes – both positively and negatively. Studies have revealed that even increasing exercise frequency can have dramatic ramifications on gut microbiota balance. High-intensity workouts (HIIT, running, stair climbers, or intensive hiking) tend to strain your digestive system. On the other hand, low-intensity workouts like yoga are gentle on your digestive.
Medication
One of the easiest ways for people to throw off their gut flora balance is by taking medication. Drugs may kill off good bacteria in your gut and encourage the proliferation of bad ones; antibiotics are particularly liable, while birth control pills and other forms of contraception could also alter its ecosystem. These drugs may alter your microbial ecosystem in various ways, altering its nutrition or length of growth time.
Stress and Mental Wellness
Stress is a natural part of life, but unmanaged, it can become detrimental to gut health. Unchecked, it may alter the gut microbiota and lead to dysbiosis. Stressful situations cause our bodies to release stress hormones like cortisol, which cause various changes within the body. One such change is a higher amount of potentially harmful bacteria in the gut.
Diet
An imbalanced diet high in fat and low in fiber can have adverse effects on gut bacteria, so it is crucial that we eat a well-rounded, whole-food diet rich in fiber that includes plenty of whole food sources like fruit. An intake of saturated and trans fats may lead to inflammation, disrupting the gut microbiome and leading to chronic illnesses, as well as symptoms of dysbiosis such as gas, bloating, and diarrhea.
How to Bring More Balance to Gut Flora?
When the balance between beneficial and pathogenic bacteria in your gut begins to shift out of balance, it can lead to various health problems. However, there are ways to bring more balance to gut flora. Here are some tips you can follow:
Eat a Balanced Diet
One effective way of improving gut flora balance is through eating healthily. A healthy diet should include plenty of soluble fiber to aid the movement of your bowels more smoothly, and it can be found in vegetables, some fruits, whole grains, nuts, and seeds. To improve your gut bacteria balance, add more fiber to your diet and eat foods rich in probiotics.
Get Enough Sleep
Sleep deprivation can have serious repercussions for our gut health, altering the composition of gut microbes to promote unfavorable bacteria that cause digestive discomfort. There is good news: there are steps we can take to restore balance to our gut flora. Sleep is key – getting enough rest can improve overall health while helping prevent digestive problems.
Exercise
Unbeknownst to many is that exercise can also improve the composition of your gut flora. According to studies, regular physical activity has even been found to boost gastrointestinal health. Studies show that exercise alters a person’s gut microbiome in ways independent of diet or other factors.
Manage Your Stress
Integrating stress management techniques such as prioritizing tasks and seeking support from family and friends into our everyday lives is one of the keys to maintaining balance within our gut flora. Studies have demonstrated that stressors, including high levels of cortisol, can alter gut bacteria.
Take Supplements
An imbalance of gut flora can create issues for our digestive health, hormonal health, and skin health. To boost gut and metabolic health experts advise using gut health supplements like provitalize.
Conclusion
Your intestinal microbiome should consist of healthy bacteria that help your body digest food, fight pathogens and synthesize vitamins. When your flora becomes out-of-balance, it can result in dysbiosis. It occurs when an overgrowth of harmful bacteria or yeast takes over your digestive tract. While you can treat mild cases successfully with probiotics, severe cases could eventually develop chronic conditions like IBS or leaky gut, making treatment even more necessary. Diet and lifestyle modifications are usually the best way to combat dysbiosis, while supplements may also prove helpful in certain instances.
