10 Practical Doctor Advices for Good Gut Health

Welcome to episode 1 of our series on GUT HEALTH. Our aim is to educate you so that those digestion problems stay away from you like we doctors stay away from apples.

Our health is impacted by what we eat in a major way. Most common diseases and the daily problems people face can be prevented by good nutritional habits.

While answering patients' questions I realized, many have problems of poor gut health and indigestion, thus came the motivation for this article. To educate and help.

'So I won't be just providing difficult or wishful tips, Here are 10 practical advices that I give my patients which you can easily follow without sacrificing your taste buds to the diet gods.

#1: Eat more curd

• We've all seen so many advertisements about probiotics, well we have a better and cheaper solution for you -eat more curd on a regular basis. Curd has lactobacillus - a good bacteria that will go in your gut and prevent the over growth of harmful bacteria, moreover they produce vitamin B12 which is usually present only in non vegetarian food. So, if you are vegetarian curd becomes much more important for you.

• If you have breathing difficulties and feel tired all day you might have anemia and the 2 major causes are - Iron deficiency and low vitamin B12. Curd will not only help in that but also will keep your gut full of good bacteria.

#2: Eat Jaggery instead of sugar (Ensure it's good quality & is made in an Iron wok,not processed)

• We're sorry Diabetics this tip isn't for you but for everyone else who has their sugar levels in check -start eating jaggery.

• In our medical college, professors used to quiz us on why isn't anemia common in rural India and the answer was surprisingly 'jaggery' (Gud). It is a great source of iron.

• Most common anemia in India is Iron deficiency anemia and this cheap,easily accessible and yummy ingredient that is eaten all over in rural India can help you not being a part of that anemia club.

• Bonus is it's fewer in calories and higher in fibres than our table sugar.

#3: Eat more greens

• We know, we know, we couldn't be more clichéd doctors. Honestly even we didn't eat that many greens before we studied about them. They provide roughage and many micronutrients like Zinc,Selenium,Manganese & more with weirder names that really would help in our goal of better gut and over all health, and if you're watching your weight they provide an additional benefit of filling you up and preventing you from over eating.

#4: Switch to the correct oils

• So many brands advertise that their oil is healthier but that doesn't depend on the brand, it depends on what kind of oil it is.

• The best oils are those which have low saturated fats, we can read the nutritional labels or the general rule is- more the saturated fats, more solidified the oil is gonna be, so oils like coconut oil even substances like ghee, butter etc are really not that healthy scientifically.

• Best oils are those with low saturated fatty acids, high unsaturated fatty acids and more essential fatty acids. Switching to the right oil can significantly reduce the risk of heart disease in the future.

A few examples of good oils are-

Source- Dr. K. Park's textbook of Preventive and social medicine (24th edition)

#5: More protein

• Proteins are the building blocks and repair material of our body, but knowledge of protein amount isn't enough we need to factor in the digestibility and suitability too.

• Meat and pulses are great sources of protein yet the Soya Chaap that everybody loves eating has some surprises up its sleeves.

• Soybean has 43 grams of protein per 100 grams, which is the most in vegetarian foods.

• Ideally the protein that we get from non vegetarian food is superior because more of it is absorbed but if you're vegetarian, then I guess you should start eating more Soybean.

#6: Meditate / Relax

• We tend to overlook the effect our mental health has on our gut.

• Our modern lifestyle which keeps us worried about work, money, social media causes a lot of stress. This increases the acid secretion in our stomach which can make you feel like you have indigestion or discomfort.

• So relax a little, give time to yourself, meditate, go out on that trip, enjoy in nature, loosen up, exercise a little more and your life would improve drastically.

#7: Do not lie down after meals

• It is a bad idea to immediately lie down after a meal and no we're not talking just about dinner, we mean all meals. When we lie down after meals the acid in our stomach goes towards the junction of our food pipe and stomach, which may cause burning sensation and slowly leads to development of GERD (Gastro-esophageal Reflux disease, which is a fancy way of saying acidity/heart burn).

#8: Adequate hydration

• We are not about to tell you that you should drink these many glasses of water in a day. The truth is there is no such fixed number. Our body is very good at controlling the water balance of our body. Our brain has thirst centers that will act as your alarms that you need more water. Best advise is - never stay thirsty, whenever your body demands water, drink adequately.

#9: Less salt

• Did you know ideally we should eat only about 5 grams of salt in a day, but in India we consume about 15 grams of salt.Sometimes upto 25grams!

• It gives our body ions that mess with the blood pressure control system of our body and in the long term, will lead to hypertension. So try to reduce the intake of salt in your daily diet a little.

#10: Avoid sugar

• Sugar is not an essential nutrient and is the leading cause of obesity. Not diabetes though, sugar doesn't cause diabetes, it's bad if you have diabetes but it doesn't cause it.

• Sugar is bad because it makes you obese. Eating less fat or fat free cookies etc, well let me tell you something - when you eat fat, it gets broken into fatty acids which are used by the body and some of them get stored, while sugar gives the body carbohydrates which are either used up immediately and the majority that is left is slowly converted to fat over time and makes us obese.

• Sugar is also bad because it causes Insulin (the hormone in our body that works on blood level of sugar) to spike (sudden increase).

• So everything with high sugar is really bad for us. Ever read how much sugar 250 ml of soft drinks have - usually around 25 to 30 grams, try to visualize how much that is. Now before you run off to buy artificial sweetners, we suggest using honey or jaggery as alternatives.

Empowered with this knowledge, we hope making better decisions got easier for you.

MORE on this & similar posts on our Nutrition & Lifestyle segment.

Wanna see the video? Here you go: https://youtu.be/C1CfbwawBiI