Acne, eczema, rosacea and visible signs of ageing have one thing in common: they are all symptoms of an unhappy gut.

 

It’s not just what you put on your skin that matters to heal skin conditions – we have to look deeper inside the body to fix the cause of the problem.

Functional medicine goes by the principle that every body system is connected. Your endocrine (hormone) system, immune system and digestive systems don’t operate independently of each other – they are all in support of each other. 

 

At the centre of our body achieving optimum homeostasis, is a balanced and healthy digestive system.

 

About 4-5kg of our body’s mass is made of good & bad bacteria living in the gut! Amazing, don’t you think? We are more bacteria than living cells. That’s about one human cell to 10 bacterial, so it makes sense that in order to improve our health, we need to help re-populate the good bacteria.

When you have an unhealthy gut, it doesn’t only affect you in the form of tummy pains, bloating or feeling ‘blocked up’, it also shows up on your skin in different forms. My job is to play detective and help heal each client’s concerns for long-term results.

 

When the gut is sluggish and of ill health, our immune system is also adversely affected. 

 

60-80% of our immune systems is located within the digestive system and an imbalance in our gut will cause immune concerns, auto-immune disease or a weakened immune system in general, leaving us more susceptible to illness and disease. 

 

An unbalanced gut can be linked to hormonal imbalances, auto-immune diseases, diabetes, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, anxiety, depression, eczema, rosacea, and other chronic health problems. There is also a higher rate of IBS, reflux (when pregnant), anxiety and chronic fatigue syndrome when a gut imbalance is found in women (via The Whole Daily).

 

The goal is to get rid of things that negatively affect the environment of the gut, things like wheat, lactose, sugar, and hydrolysed oils, as well as irritants like alcohol, caffeine, or drugs. These not only mess with the digestive system – they also throw the nervous system and endocrine (hormone) system into disarray.

 

As horrible as it sounds, many of us are walking around with infections in our digestive system, caused by bacteria, yeast or parasites. 

Making sure you’re re-populating your gut will assist in aiding our body’s absorption of nutrients. What is the point of spending money and time sourcing organic whole foods if you’re not absorbing it? 

 

Before we had fridges, we fermented our vegetables and dairy products to increase the shelf-life, whilst also making them easer to digest, thus allowing for higher nutrient absorption.

Think of your belly like a cooking pot: the warmer and fermented, the better the body will be able to process these nutrients. That’s why we cook foods, because if everything is raw, it would be harder for the body to hit its daily caloric needs.

For me, I like to take a good quality probiotic supplement periodically to help aid my gut flora as I don’t consume enough of the above foods in my daily diet. It’s important to introduce nutrient support to properly repair your digestive system.

Leaky gut syndrome will also need to be healed if this is present. This is when tight junctions in the gut, that control what passes through the lining of the small intestine, don’t work properly and so allow substances to pass through the gut and into the bloodstream. 

Be kind to your gut and many of the problems you’re trying to fix topically will fix themselves far more easily.