How Your Gut Health Affects Your Skin
This might sound strange to more than a few people, but in order for your skin to look great, your gut needs to be healthy. If you want to clear up acne and other skin conditions, you should look at what is going on with your digestive system. It turns out that the lack of good bacteria in your gut can have serious affects on our skin.
What Is A Healthy Gut
We all know that when we are nervous or stressed we feel it in our stomach.
Our stomach can get twisted into knots just from us thinking about something that bothers us. This is because our gut not only is in charge of digesting our food but the gut lining also contains hundreds of millions of neurons that function as a “second brain” in our body. Our gut also plays an important role in our immune system by defending our body against viruses and bacteria and keeping us healthy.
Our brain and gut send messages back and forth to one another which explains why if you stressed out your stomach can be upset.
Another important thing about our gut is that it contains hundreds of types of bacteria. Ideally that bacteria should be good bacteria that breaks down food, supports the immune system, and consumes bad bacteria. The balance of good bacteria versus bad bacteria, which promotes disease and secretes toxins, is what keeps our gut, our emotional health, our physical health, and our skin in balance.
The Gut Skin Connection
The balance of good and bad bacteria in our gut directly affects our skin. A lack of good bacteria will lead to inflammation in the body. Both acne and other skin problems are related to inflammation in the body.
Having too much bad bacteria in the gut along with yeast and fungus there can directly affect the skin. Not only could you have acne but also rosacea or other skin conditions. So if you suffer from acne and have tried everything in order to cure it without success make sure you look into what is going on with your gut.
If your gut isn’t healthy, you could definitely see that in your skin.
How To Fix Your Gut So Your Skin Glows
In order to see if your gut is the cause of your skin problems, you can do a number of things. You could go see an expert who can test your urine or stool in order to see how much yeast and how much good and bad bacteria you have in your gut. Once you look at those results, a nutritionist can help you change your diet so that you eliminate foods that cause inflammation and produce bad bacteria.
You can also experiment on your own. Go on an elimination diet for two weeks. Stop eating all dairy, sugar, and wheat (all foods that cause inflammation) and see if your skin starts to look better. Start taking a probiotic which are pills filled with good bacteria. Taking a probiotic daily will increase the number of good bacteria in your gut and prevents further inflammation which will then have a positive affect on your skin. Limit the amount of antibiotics you take since antibiotics kill all bacteria in the gut both good and bad. Try to stop eating processed food. Consider eating fermented foods such as kimchi and kefir, healthy fats like coconut oil and avocado, and take a fish oil supplement.
While healing your gut will have a positive affect on your skin be sure to be patient. This is not an overnight cure for skin issues. The body can heal itself, but in order to do so, it needs time and TLC.