How Does Gut Health Affect Your Immunity? Explains Dr Pooja Kohli

It is commonly stated that "every disease begins in the gut." Therefore, to stay healthy, we must keep the gut happy.

Good gut health is essential for improving your immune system. An unhealthy gut can lead to poor immune function and, as a result, autoimmune and inflammatory conditions. In contrast, a weakened immune system can impair gut function and cause digestive problems. Dr Pooja Kohli, AVP, HempStreet, shares how good gut flora can benefit your immunity and overall health:

1. The Influence Of Gut Bacteria On Immunity: The gut microbiome plays a vital role in the body's immune cells' advancement, development, and function. As a result, a healthy gut improves the effectiveness of vaccines administered to humans. According to a 2021 study conducted in the Netherlands, the gut contains 70-80 per cent of the body's immune cells! As a result, your gut and immunity are more strongly connected than you initially assumed. The gut microbiome teaches immune cells how to distinguish between your cells and foreign bacteria. In turn, the immune system encourages the growth of beneficial microorganisms in the gut, resulting in improved digestive health.
2. Understanding How Your Gut Works: The gut microbiome is a compendium of all microorganisms found in the digestive tract. It impacts many vital body functions, including comprehension, digestion, appetite, mood, memory, weight, behaviour, and metabolism. When the immune system functions correctly, it effectively differentiates between good and bad microbes and fights them off. When the immune system is weak, it misidentifies its bodily cells as dangerous invaders. As a result, it causes the immune system to attack its cells by mistake, resulting in rheumatoid inflammatory disorders, type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, colitis, and others.
3. The Dietary Effect: A 2021 ZOE COVID Study discovered that people who ate a gut-friendly (plant-rich) diet were 40% less likely to have severe COVID symptoms than those who ate an unhealthy one. Because an unhealthy diet can raise undesirable blood fat and blood sugar levels in the body, promoting chronic inflammation and its related illnesses. Today our usual diet is high in animal proteins, sugars, saturated fats, processed ingredients, and so on. Consuming them reduces the diversity of gut bacteria and, as a result, harms immune cells, resulting in chronic disorders and inflammatory disorders.

How To Improve Your Gut And Immunity?

Ayurvedic doctors and healthcare professionals recommend eating fibre-rich, plant-based foods to help bolster gut bacteria and reduce inflammatory reactions from immune cells. Fibre-rich foods contain prebiotics, which are plant fibres that promote the growth of beneficial bacteria.

1. Eating probiotic-rich brewed foods regularly can add diversity to the intestinal flora and effectively control the immune response and gut function.
2. Prebiotic foods include yoghurt, kefir, tempeh, kimchi, Swiss cheeses, aged cheddar cheese, cottage cheese, and others.
3. Natural herbs and spices add flavour to the diet and contain various chemical compounds that promote gut bacteria diversity.
4. The Bilwadi Churna is among the most effective Ayurvedic remedies for improving gut health. It is a formulation of herbal ingredients such as Bilwa fruit, ginger, Vijaya, fennel seeds, and others and has the potential to increase your gut function and digestive health dramatically. The Bilwa fruit relieves symptoms of diarrhoea, indigestion, and constipation.
5. Ginger aids in releasing intestinal gas, improves digestion and relaxes the digestive tract. Fennel seeds increase gut metabolism, whereas Vijaya improves appetite, increases good gut bacteria concentration, and relieves various digestive disorders such as Colitis, Bloating, IBD, and IBS.