Did you know that your gut health may be negatively affecting your life more than you think?
The importance of gut health is a topic that has grown increasingly popular over the past few years, and for good reason. When our gut microbiome is healthy and balanced, our entire body falls into a balanced state of health too, as the gut is one of the powerhouses in our body and directly influences much more within us beyond just our digestive system.
For this reason, an unhealthy gut can manifest in many negative ways in our body, leading to health issues and imbalances that may seem completely unrelated to the gut from a surface level. These are the sneaky symptoms of poor gut health that are especially tricky to connect back to the gut, but are actually the majority of issues people struggling with an unhealthy gut microbiome experience daily, unaware of the underlying root cause.
The good news? Once you know what symptoms to look for, spotting these secret signs of an unhealthy gut is quite simple, and all it takes is making the steps towards healing your gut health to simultaneously tackle all your connected health issues too.
So what are the main six sneaky symptoms and signs of an unhealthy gut? Let’s unpack them (some may surprise you!).
#1: Skin Breakouts
Acne breakouts and skin flare ups are often caused by poor gut health. The skin is the body’s largest organ and often reflects our internal health, especially when it comes to our gut, as the two are closely related. When our gut health is imbalanced, it causes a negative impact on our skin, manifesting as inflammation, rashes, and acne on the surface. This is why when treating acne, besides topical treatment, people often say to look for the deeper root cause in order to properly heal your skin issues from the source. Think of healing your gut as internal skincare that will reflect on the surface, clearing any acne or inflammation on your skin and creating a glow to your complexion, which naturally appears from achieving a healthy, thriving gut microbiome.
#2: Regular Bloating
While bloating every once in a while is completely normal and often connected to our digestion, chronic daily bloating, where your stomach expands like a balloon no matter what you eat, is a different story and is most likely connected to poor gut health. When our gut is unhealthy, there is an overgrowth of bad bacteria, leading to an imbalance in our gut microbiome. This imbalance of harmful bacteria can cause undigested food to ferment in our stomach, causing excess gas to be produced. This leads to bloating, as well as abdominal discomfort and other digestion issues to occur. Additionally, when our gut is overflowing with bad bacteria, our body struggles to properly eliminate waste, which can then build up in our colon and cause not only constipation, but lower belly bloating. When you fix your gut health and restore balance to your gut microbiome, your body will be able to digest food properly and daily bloating will be much less likely to occur.
#3: Sugar Cravings
Speaking of bad bacteria overgrowth, when our gut is imbalanced and full of harmful bacteria, we are far more likely to develop extreme food cravings, especially for sugar. This is because the unhealthy microbes in our gut thrive off of sugar, and so they send constant signals to our brain to crave more sweet foods to continue to fuel them and kill off any healthy microbes remaining in our gut. The more sweets we consume, the more unhealthy bacteria grows and the influence on our brain’s food preferences increases, revolving in a constant, unhealthy cycle. Noticing abnormal sugar cravings on the daily can be a very telling sign that your gut is imbalanced and needs to be repopulated with good, healthy bacteria. Once you get your gut restored back to a healthy balance and break the cycle, you’ll successfully be able to kick your stubborn sugar cravings to the curb and keep them at bay.
#4: Weight Gain
If you’ve noticed you’ve been struggling to maintain your weight or have experienced unwanted weight gain, you may want to look at your gut health. Our gut strongly impacts the nutrient absorption of our food, our metabolism, and the overall inflammation in our body, all of which correlate to our weight. With an imbalanced gut microbiome, our body can struggle to properly absorb the essential nutrients from the food we consume, leading to deficiencies and potentially increased appetite and cravings, which can cause us to overeat and gain weight. Additionally, poor gut health can impact how our body regulates our metabolism, disrupting the process of how we store and utilize energy. This, along with the impact of inflammation produced in the body from the imbalances in our gut, can result in increased fat storage and insulin resistance. Discovering your gut as the root cause of all these issues can help you get your body back on track, as restoring balance into your gut microbiome will naturally balance out your weight to a healthy, normal number on the scale.
#5: Chronic Sickness
Did you know that 70-80% of our immune system lives in the gut? Our gut is actually the central hub of most immune activity in our body, and plays a large role in regulating our immune responses. A healthy gut microbiome is key for ensuring that our body effectively can fight off any harmful pathogens, without overreacting and causing unwanted inflammation in the body. On the other hand, when our gut is unhealthy, our immune system can become compromised. Due to the overgrowth of bad bacteria in an unhealthy gut, our immune defenses can become weak, leaving us more susceptible to diseases and infections and far more likely to get sick. Try to pay attention if you're suddenly chronically catching colds or little sicknesses, and take the steps to increase the healthy bacteria in your gut, because when you do this, your immunity will increase too.
#6: Lack of Energy
Feeling constantly fatigued, or having a hard time sleeping at night and then waking up always exhausted in the morning, is an alarm bell to check in with your gut, as it just may be the culprit behind your low energy levels. As we’ve already discussed, an unhealthy gut can impair nutrient absorption, preventing our body from properly absorbing the essential nutrients, like vitamins and minerals, from our food that are crucial for energy production. To make it worse, this lack of nutrients can sometimes also include magnesium, which is important for regulating sleep. So not only is our body then not gaining energy from our food, but we’re also lacking the nutrients that promote restful sleep. On top of that, the overgrowth of harmful bacteria in our gut can lead to inflammation through our entire body, which can disrupt our normal sleep patterns. This is due to the fact that our gut is responsible for producing neurotransmitters in our body like serotonin that regulate our sleep-wake cycles, and poor gut health disturbs this production process. Luckily, when you work to get your gut balanced and back on track, your sleep and energy levels will naturally follow.
Looking back at these six signs of poor gut health we just discussed, it’s clearly apparent just how much our gut is truly connected to everything within our body.
A healthy gut microbiome ensures the lining of our gut stays strong and sealed, allowing our body to properly dispose of toxins, digest our food properly, and function at its best. What’s more, when our gut is actually happy and balanced, our entire body falls into a balanced state of health as well. This is why prioritizing our gut health is so key to maintaining a healthy, vibrant body, and also why when our gut is unhealthy, it trickles down and disrupts the rest of our health so negatively.
If there’s anything you can take away from this, it’s remembering that when we're talking about healing our gut health, we're talking about healing our entire body too, and the more you prioritize your gut’s health, the more you are prioritizing YOU.
Ready to take the next steps to healing your gut? Order a bottle of our doctor-formulated Gut Glo supplement, designed to rebuild your gut and transform your health, to begin your journey to a healthy, happier you from within. Shop here.
