Taking antibiotics? Make sure you give your gut some TLC (Image: Getty) While it might seem obvious that gut microbiome is vital for digestion, its influence goes much further than dispatching your dinner. Nicknamed the second brain, gut bacteria can help keep skin, hormones, bone density, immunity, metabolism and mood in check. Jane McClenaghan, a nutritionist at Vital Nutrition , explains: “Although found in our gut, our microbiome – a community of trillions of bacteria that live in your digestive tract – impacts every aspect of our health and wellbeing.
If you look after your microbiome, it will look after your health.” Unfortunately, there are many lifestyle factors which can disrupt the microbiome, from smoking to eating too much sugar, refined carbohydrates, alcohol, artificial sweeteners and ultra-processed foods. But even getting ill or taking pills and medicines on doctors’ orders can have a significant impact.
Dr Megan Rossi, The Gut Health Doctor explains: “Antibiotics not only kill the ‘bad’ bacteria, but the good guys can get caught in the crossfire too. Most research says antibiotics can impact our gut microbiome, and in some cases, particularly with multiple courses, the changes caused are irreversible, meaning that not all bacteria will come back after treatment.” function loadOvpScript(){let el=document.
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