What exactly is the gut, I hear you ask?

Think of your gut as an enclosed pipe that runs from your mouth to your anus. Food comes in and waste is removed.

Hazel Thomas is a registered clinical nutritionist who focuses on gut health and a healthy lifestyle for overall wellbeing.

Essentially the ‘gut’ breaks down your food, absorbs nutrients, feeds your cells and eliminates what you don’t need, which is pretty amazing stuff.

We often forget that what we put into our mouth plays a vital role to our health and to the health of our bugs, the microorganisms that are part of our gut flora.

Ann Wigmore, a health practitioner, believes that ‘Food can be either the safest and most powerful form of medicine or the slowest form of poison’. If your gut is imbalanced, then it’s likely that you may be feeling under par or suffer from irritable bowel syndrome, chronic pain, fatigue, constipation, diarrhoea, excess weight, mood issues, hormonal imbalances and other inconvenient conditions or symptoms.

In the health world there is a lot of talk about the gut microbiome. So what exactly is it? It is part of our gut garden.

Dr Natasha Campbell-McBride, a medical doctor and neurologist, explains it like this: ‘The plant’s root system in the soil is about the same size as the plant above the ground. If the soil around the root is not healthy, then the plant is not going to thrive’.

The gut wall under a microscope has a similar picture. Our gut has finger like projections called villi that absorb nutrients. These villi are surrounded by gut bacteria, which we can view as the ‘soil’. If the ‘soil’ is unhealthy because it has been poisoned by antibiotics, other chemicals, alcohol or poor food choices, then the roots (villi) of your gut are sick too.

Our gut is home to around two kilograms of bacteria. Some of them good others not so good. The balance of good to bad depends bacteria on medications, food choices, lifestyle and other factors. Generally they live in harmony and have a vital role to play in regulating hormones, building your immune system, balancing your mood, preventing the growth of bad bacteria, producing vitamins and clearing out toxins.

Some of the obvious signs that they your bacteria are out of balance are diarrhoea, constipation, wind, burping, pain in the abdomen, bloating and nausea.

According to Dr Campbell-McBride, it can take up to four years to restore and rebuild the gut microbiome following a course of antibiotics. Antibiotics usage can be necessary and life-saving in some cases but we need to be aware that it does have implications for our gut health.

You may be surprised to learn that about 80% of the immune system resides in the gut.  Around 90% of your feel good hormone, serotonin also resides in your gut. So it is in our best interest to keep our gut healthy.

When our gut isn’t healthy our enclosed gut ‘pipe’ can become permeable, which is known as leaky gut. Large protein molecules can get into the blood stream, which can activate our immune system to attack these foreign particles.

Healing the gut can take time but the results are well worth the effort. The starting point is to remove or address factors that are contributing to poor gut health such as unhealthy fats, too much sugar, stress, alcohol, toxins or food sensitivities. A Clinical Nutritionist can help to identify the underlying root cause.

From there it will be important to support the digestive processes, address nutritional deficiencies, include foods that feed the gut microbiome and to repair the gut lining so that foreign particles no longer enter the blood stream.

Our bodies are truly amazing and will be giving us signs and symptoms to tell us that something is off balance. Remember to listen to your gut and feed your ‘soil’ bugs the right foods and choose a healthy life style for a happy gut and happy you!

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• Lifestyle