10 Daily habits that are damaging your gut health

Welcome back to Episode 3 of The Gut Health series. Thanks for the amazing response!

In today's episode, I will talk about 10 daily habits that most of us might have, unaware of the fact that it may be damaging our gut health.

#1. You overcook your vegetables

Cooked veggies are great! Overcooking & charring your food will kill the nutrients + hinder the taste.

#2. You never eat with your hands

In many Asian culture, using your hands to eat is an integral part of the food culture. Indians originally ate with hands and still do in most parts of the country.

If you always use fork or spoon to eat, you are missing out on good gut bacteria. Plus, eating with your hands makes you more mindful of what you are eating and is a great way to protect your mouth from burning due to the hot food you thought was fine.

#3. You drink lots of water before or during your meal

When you drink a lot of water right before your meal or during the meal, dilutes the acid in your stomach (HCl or Hydrochloric acid, precisely) which is important to kill the bacteria that enters our stomach with the food we eat & aids in digestion of food. We're not saying don't, just be mindful of how much.

#4. You have the same meal

We all have our favorite dish that we prepare every week because it is delicious, easy to make or is our comfort food. That's great!

But eating the same kind of food items will limit our nutrient quotient and it might even get monotonous leading to eating junk food or unhealthy snacking.

#5. You have refined sugar, more than you should

We have already spoken about this in episode 1 of good gut health series.

https://www.myhealthclub.co.in/post/10-practical-advices-for-good-gut-health-by-a-doctor

But we just couldn't stop mentioning it again. Sugar, that is refined sugar that we consume in our daily lives is Poison!

Consuming refined sugar causes Insulin spike, A energy high which then leads to a dip in glucose level and all of this is bad for our hormones & Gut health.

#6. You take your Iron supplements right after your tea/coffee

Most of us have low Iron level causing Iron Deficiency Anemia (aka IDA).

We should take Iron rich food and we supplement that with Iron supplements. These Iron supplements are usually quite irritating for our gut lining causing bloating and constipation/Diarrhoea.

NOW, if you take the supplements along with or close to tea/coffee it actually hinders absorption of Iron. So, we end up having gut issues + no benefit of iron.

#7. You drink too much water at once & towards the end of the day

We are all asked to drink 8 glasses of water or 2-3L of it and we try to keep a track of how much we actually drank at the end of the day.

So, we realize in the evening that we have barely drank water. What do we do? We chug a litre of water at once before bed & call it a day.

Will it help in hydration? Unlikely.

Will it cause any trouble though? Likely.

How? By putting Extra pressure on our kidney at once to filter out that water.

Our body has a sophisticated mechanism to control our fluid levels, just drink enough so that you're never thirsty and you'll be fine, we promise.

#8. You sleep right after your meals

I wish I could swear I am not guilty of this.

We should Ideally sleep (that is lie down) 4 hours after we have finished our meal. If that's too much wait for at least one hour before you lie down.

Why? When we lie down, the acids and food content we just ate come up into our esophagus (aka Food Pipe) just causing acidity, chest pain, heart burn etc.

#9. You take NSAIDs (Meds like Aspirin, Ibuprofen, Combiflam regularly)

NSAIDs taken casually for every little thing is not a good idea. Why? It decreases the Prostaglandin (aka PGs) which play a major role in protective barrier of gastric mucosa – leading to Gastritis or Acidity.

NSAIDs commonly called “Pain Killers” are commonly available Over-The-Counter (OTC) and most patients we encounter pop them regularly for littlest of things, which is bad news for their gut.

#10. You don't eat a variety of food items

Aim to include at least 30 different food ingredients or items in your diet per week. Our food and its byproducts also act as food for our gut bacteria (gut microbiome) – the more kind, the merrier!

It's so important to not just eat the same vegetable or fruit or grain. Its also quite pointless to endlessly take one or two kind of probiotic supplement & presume your gut is great!

Mark yourself out of 10 & tell me us how well or poor your did?!

We hope this helps you take a step towards better gut health & overall quality of your life.

We wish you lots of health.

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