A healthy gut can help protect your body against diseases. Everybody is focusing on the gut now to restore health, and the thinking is a lot of causes of diseases that affect us originate in the gut. There are doctors who believe that poor gut health is linked to vision problems and brain health. Find out how they are linked and how to improve your gut’s health!

Achieving a Healthy Gut Through a Healthy Lifestyle

Your Gut and Your Eye

Some doctors assume that a leakage in their patient’s retina may also indicate a leakage in their gut. Your gut is closely related to your brain and your eye. This is due to the number of bacteria in your gastrointestinal tract.

The Bacteria in Your Gut

In 2007, the National Institutes of Health funded the Human Microbiome Project which researched the genome of the bacteria in our gastrointestinal tract. They found out that there are 10 times more bacteria in our body than there are human cells in our body and that over 99 percent of the DNA in our bodies is the DNA of our bacteria.
These bacteria are involved either directly or indirectly in regulating almost everything that goes on in our body. There are brain connections linking the gut with inflammatory conditions in the brain, depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder.

The Importance of Probiotics

The main cause of a leaky gut is bad bacteria, which makes it really important to have a healthy microbiome and optimal levels of good probiotic. Probiotics and the human gut are really the frontiers of medicine.

Avoid Ruining Your Microbiome

There are a lot of prescription drugs people take that ruin their microbiomes such as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, oral contraceptives, and all of the medications for gastroesophageal reflux. Fast foods, high-fat foods, and high-sugar foods are also upsetting your microbiome. All these things are contributing to an unhealthy microbiome in the gut, which can lead to all the chronic degenerative diseases today.

Change Your Diet

There are natural ways to improve your microbiome, changing your diet is one of them. About 70% of your diet should be raw, organic vegetables. Multicolored vegetables, leafy greens, and colored fruits are filled with good bacteria. Fermented foods also promote probiotic bacteria to populate in your gastrointestinal tract.

Take Probiotics

Take probiotics to better help your microbiome and promote good bacteria in your guts. But most of the commercial yogurts have more sugar than anything else in them, which feeds Candida and your bad bacteria. That’s not to say there aren’t some good yogurts on the market, but one of the main ingredients in most of the commercial ones is sugar.

Other Foods to Avoid

Sugar is the bad bacteria, and it feeds Candida yeast that will throw things out of balance. You should also avoid gluten because it can cause inflammation and a leaky gut. Stay away from genetically modified foods and pharmaceutical products that may be damaging to the gut.

Watch this video from Dr. Josh Axe for ways to increase your intake of probiotics!

It’s better to have a multi-strain probiotic product than to take high doses of one or several strains. But taking probiotics may not always be enough. Optimize your diet too through exercise and healthy eating to ensure a healthy gut and promote healthy eyes.

What do you do to keep your gut healthy? Share your thoughts and experience with us in the comments below!

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Editor’s Note – This post was originally published on June 29, 2016 and has been updated for quality and relevancy.