Why do I Keep Getting Ill?
Every season seems to bring some particularly persistent bugs – flu and flu-like viruses that keep coming in waves, chest and throat infections, nasty sickness and tummy bugs. Even with a well-balanced diet, and seemingly doing all the right things to stay well, even the healthiest of individuals can be knocked off their feet!
Why do I keep getting sick?
Sure, you might get caught up in a bit of indulgence from time to time, including more alcohol consumption than normal. But it can be really frustrating to find yourself going down with yet another bug and getting sick every other week when you’ve barely recovered from the last one. What could be going on?
It helps to understand a bit about how the immune system works
You have numerous lines of defence all working in concert to protect you from getting ill. We produce a few different types of proteins called immunoglobulins and each type has a different job to do. Some of these, called Immunoglobulin A (IgA) are dispersed in bodily fluids such as your saliva and tears. IgA provides a first line of defence, potentially killing off anything unfamiliar that it comes into contact with, preventing it from going any further into the body.
IgE is better known for allergic reactions and potentially parasitic infections, while IgG is released in response to many of the foods you eat. However, IgG has a modulating effect, meaning that it’s presence doesn’t necessarily indicate an intolerance, IgG is there to help keep your immune system in check and to curb excessive immune reactions.
Then you have a whole host of different types of white blood cells. Some of these act quickly without having any specific knowledge of the material or organisms (living things such as viruses) that they are attacking.
Other white blood cells have a memory of a particular protein pattern (an antigen) found on the surface of a particular microbe or food molecule and will always start an immune reaction or an inflammatory cascade whenever they detect that same antigen in your system. This is the mechanism associated with auto-immunity, when your immune system sees protein patterns in something unfamiliar which are similar to protein patterns in some of your own body tissues and therefore your immune system will start to attack tissues such as joints, blood cells, or your digestive tract.
What to consider when your immunity is low
Certain foods or physical states will work to unbalance your immune system, triggering inflammation and keeping it busy so that when a bug comes along, you don’t have the reserves available to fight it. The following can overstimulate or suppress immunity:
Alcohol
You may notice that if you have a head cold, your runny nose stops for a while when you have consumed alcohol. This is because in the short term it turns part of your immune system off which may seem pretty convenient (please don’t drink alcohol to reduce your cold symptoms!) but whilst your immunity is suppressed, infective agents can actually take more of a foothold in your system, delaying how long it takes you to shake off illness.
Sugar
Spikes in blood sugar can in part trigger an inflammatory effect in your body. So if you are consuming lots of it or quite frequently, you will be in an inflammatory state more often. You need inflammation to repair injuries and to fight infections, but if inflammation is also happening excessively in response to what you eat, your defences will be depleted and ineffective when you need them.
Inflammatory foods
While some people seem to have stomachs of steel and can tolerate every food under the sun, many people may be sensitive to the inflammatory effects of some foods. There is a long list of qualities in foods that may trigger an immune response in susceptible individuals. Proteins can be a big trigger if they are picked up by the immune system, for example in milk, nuts, egg or gluten. Compounds such as lectins, oxalates, salicylates or histamine may also be involved. In conditions such as eczema, asthma, acne and polycystic ovarian syndrome, certain inflammatory fats can worsen symptoms, meanwhile distracting your immune system from protecting you from infections.
Inadequate nutrition
For example lacking or having an increased requirement for dietary nutrients needed to support immune function such as protein, vitamin C, zinc, magnesium and B vitamins. Often people on a restrictive diet or consuming more processed foods and less whole natural foods can fall short of many vitamins, minerals, good fats, protein or even simply adequate energy!
Dehydration
Water is needed to help release energy needed for all the hundreds of chemical reactions that are constantly occurring in your body. These include transporting vitamins and minerals to the organs and tissues that need them for repair, creating more immune cells and so on. You also need water to flush unwanted materials (including bacteria and viruses) out of your body.
Exercise
When you exercise, it is normal to have some inflammation to encourage repair of muscles. And rest after exercise is when the magic happens, we repair and build muscle tissue. But excessive exercise with inadequate rest can impair immunity and contribute to susceptibility to colds.
Cortisol
The stress hormone. You need cortisol to get you up and going in the morning, it also stimulates your thymus gland which helps regulate your immunity. If you don’t have a good cortisol spike in the morning, people with autoimmune conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease and Hashimotos (autoimmune hypothyroidism) can struggle with relapses or flare ups of their conditions. Chronic high cortisol caused by prolonged stress can have various effects on the body including:
An imbalance in hormones such as male and female sex hormones
Inability to produce the morning cortisol spike (as above) and dysregulation that may result in being tired but wired or lacking energy and poor cognitive function.
Impaired immunity
On this subject, low stress tolerance, unaddressed grief, trauma, depression, anxiety and a lack of relaxation or rest can all take a toll on your cortisol regulation and your immunity.
What to do to improve your immunity
I covered lots of nutritional steps that you can incorporate to support your immune system in earlier blogs about surviving the festive excesses and bouncing back from a stomach bug. So now I will go a little deeper into some of the lifestyle factors that may be hindering your ability to fend off seasonal bugs.
My Top 5 lifestyle tips to support immunity
1. Consider your alcohol and added sugar intake – it’s especially important to avoid alcohol when you are fighting an active infection or illness. But because alcohol and refined sugar are inflammatory, you may benefit by limiting the regularity and the quantity of them and replacing them with whole nutritious foods, plenty of water and calming herbal teas. If this seems like a difficult transition, try making one change at a time, give yourself time to adjust but remind yourself regularly why your body will thank you for them later!
2. Prioritise sleep – there is always so much to do and it may feel as though you will miss out on things by using more hours in the day to sleep. But not only will you get more out of your waking hours if you feel more rested, but you will also be helping your immune system to do it’s job, giving your hormones a chance to rebalance and helping to stabilise your appetite. You may even find that without giving it much thought, you make healthier food choices too!
3. Support your mental health – being aware of your state of mind and taking steps to address issues such as perceived stress, anxiety, overwhelm or depression is important and can seem difficult. It may be hard to know where to even start. Considering your workload and whether you can delegate, ask for help or whether some of your tasks are worth your time at all may help to reduce some of the load. Talking to friends and family or reaching out to a support network, doctor, therapist or mental health charity such as Mind may be a big step for you. YOU matter and people will always want to know how they can help.
4. Mindfulness and meditation – following on from above, many people find that they benefit from either of these. Learning to quieten the mental chatter, while also acknowledging thoughts that occur without judgement can not only help to lower anxiety levels but can also enhance your concentration, focus and memory. There are apps such as Calm and Headspace that you can try, many useful books, plus mindfulness and meditation courses that you can attend locally.
5. When you are ill, rest! How many times have you powered through a cold, only to feel ten times worse when you get to the weekend or a holiday? It’s not always easy to take time off and if you have children to look after or a job with lots of responsibility, you may feel like you have no choice but to carry on. But consider whether you have any options available – could family or friends lend a hand with the children so that you can catch up on some sleep? Is there a parent at your children’s school who would be happy to help with the school runs? Could your partner take over with making dinner or getting groceries in so that you can snuggle up on the sofa when you get home from work? Perhaps you could work from home? But if you really are fending off a nasty bug, the best thing to do is to take some time off, with luck you’ll bounce back quicker!
If you are persistently ill and would like help with getting your immunity and gut health back up to par or your energy back, get in touch at info@victoriabellnutrition.co.uk or call 07873 121616.
How to Survive Festive Excesses
No doubt you’re familiar with the situation: you’ve promised yourself that you’ll drink less/eat less/have more self-control this time, whether it’s one meal, night out or even the whole month of December!
But then things don’t go quite to plan – you were distracted and the nibbles were so moreish that you have no idea how many you tucked into. Someone has been topping up your drink and as a result you drank way more than you planned to! Or maybe you had the best intentions, you got to the party, meal or went to the kitchen for an evening snack and as if some switch went off in your head you suddenly thought “I’m going to make the most of this!”.
We’ve all fallen into traps like these, it’s so easily done. But to then feel like we’ve failed in some way or be self-critical of ourselves for being human takes away from what otherwise might have been quite an enjoyable time. Having less of an all or nothing approach to food can be a way of changing our mindset so that we don’t feel the need to go all out when we’ve let ourselves “off” for any given duration. This is something that I will explore in future blogs.
In this blog, let’s look at some ways to mitigate against the festive overindulgence so that you don’t end up feeling so much worse for it in the New Year! Firstly, you can take some steps to curb your intake of food or alcohol.
5 Ways to Prevent Overindulgence
1. Have a snack an hour or so before you go out. A good quality snack with some protein and possibly fibre too, will take the edge off your hunger so that you are not ravenous when food comes within sniffing distance! Good choices include nuts, fruit such as an apple, berries or banana, vegetable sticks, houmous, a small green smoothie with some added protein powder, oat cakes, a boiled egg, or some fish such as smoked salmon.
2. If you’re at a meal and there are vegetables available, aim to fill at least half the plate with them.
3. Drink plenty of water before you go out because we often mistake dehydration for hunger. Drinking glasses of water alongside your alcoholic drinks and before you go to bed will also help you to keep hydrated.
4. If you’re drinking spirits, ask for singles rather than doubles. If you’re drinking wine, go with smaller glasses as overall you are likely to drink less.
5. Slow down your eating. Really try to taste and enjoy your food and as much as possible be present in the moment so that you are mindful of what you are eating. You may find that by doing this, less is more satisfying and you won’t look down at an empty plate with no recall of eating the food on it! The second way to mitigate against overindulgence is to support your body’s natural processes of detoxifying and eliminating toxins. Not being able to safely get rid of the waste products from our food, especially alcohol, can also put a stress on our immune system which is why we often get under the weather after a few heavy nights or too much sugar.
10 Ways to Support Detox and Immunity through the Festive Season
1. Leafy greens - full of nutrients and antioxidants to support digestion and detoxification. Great cooked or try a fresh green smoothie or juice. Cruciferous vegetables are especially useful to increase the level of detoxification enzymes and protect the liver from damage. Try rocket, pak choi, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, horseradish, kale, radishes, spring greens, swede, turnips, watercress and wasabi. Eat cooked rather than raw if you have thyroid issues. Broccoli sprouts and broccoli sprout extract are known to be especially potent.
2. Rehydrate – it’s probably no surprise that increasing your water intake will help you feel better. If you need some inspiration, check out my guest blog with Backstobasics Osteopathy about creative ways to increase your water intake.
3. Good fats – All of the following help to normalise liver enzyme levels and prevent fat storage: Omega 3 essential fats help to reduce inflammation, find in oily fish such as salmon, mackerel, anchovies, sardines and herring. If you aren’t keen on fish, you can try a good quality fish oil supplement or a vegan source such as algae-based Omega
4. Nuts provide other good fats and vitamin E. Olive oil – as little as 1 teaspoon per day has been found to have a beneficial effect. Antioxidants – found in many everyday foods, these help to neutralise harmful free radicals, protect cells, improve liver detoxification enzyme levels and lower inflammation. Great choices include grapes, grape juice, coffee, black tea, green tea, beetroot juice, blueberries, cranberries and dark chocolate.
5. Foods containing Zinc – because overindulgence can give your immune system more work to do, it is likely to power through more zinc. Animal foods sources tend to be higher, especially shellfish, oysters, pork beef and chicken. If you are vegetarian try firm tofu, lentils, pumpkin seeds, yogurt, shiitake mushrooms and oats.
6. Vitamin C Rich Foods – vitamin C is a natural antioxidant so it is vital for immunity and supporting liver detoxification. Stock up on these great sources: kiwi fruit, guava, red peppers, blackberries, strawberries, oranges, broccoli, papaya, kale and tomatoes.
7. Citrus – as well as being a great source of vitamin C, lemon and water has long been known to support your liver and is great as your first drink of the day. Grapefruit contains antioxidants naringenin and naringin, known to reduce inflammation and protect cells.
8. Eggs – the yolks contain lecithin and choline, which is essential for your liver to break down and remove fat from the body. Choline is also needed for an antioxidant called glutathione. If you’re vegan, get plenty of quinoa, soybeans, peanuts, tofu and broccoli to get your choline.
9. Dandelion – a bitter herb which supports healthy digestion and is rich in vit A, C, D and B complex, iron, potassium and zinc. Try drinking the tea, dandelion coffee or dandelion greens.
10. Fibre helps to support healthy digestion and removal of waste products. Avocados, fennel, artichoke and onions are especially good for aiding detoxification. Apples contain pectin which helps to remove food additives and metals.
Would you like some expert advice for your team in the form of a nutrition talk in your workplace? You can find out more by contacting me at info@victoriabellnutrition.co.uk.
What is Vitamin D Deficiency?
Do you struggle more and more with your immunity or your moods as the winter goes on? Do you feel your best when the sun is shining and you’re getting lots of natural daylight? Have you been told that Vitamin D might help?
What is Vitamin D?
Vitamin D is actually a hormone, and like vitamins is vital for our health and survival. Also like some vitamins, the body cannot produce it without consuming in the diet and from natural sunlight. Our skin absorbs UV-B sunlight, creating a prohormone which is then converted to 25-hydroxyvitamin D, or Vitamin D3. The amount of Vitamin D you absorb and convert from daylight depends on tiny proteins called Vitamin D Receptors (VDRs).
What Does Vitamin D Do?
It may be best known for supporting immunity, but Vitamin D also:
Ensures calcium is absorbed to be stored in the bones, preventing fracture risk and osteoporosis
Is needed for muscle contraction and strength
Supports healthy lungs
Manages blood pressure and therefore protects the heart and arteries
Is involved in regulating kidney function
Contributes to stable moods
Plays a part in appetite control and weight management
Supports brain health and cognitive function
How do You Know if You are Vitamin D Deficient?
Symptoms can be vague, hard to pinpoint and overlap with symptoms of many other deficiencies and causes. Typical symptoms might include:
Tiredness
Muscle aches or weakness
Reduced endurance
Bone pain
Frequent respiratory illnesses
Frequent infections
Low moods and depression
Irritability
Infertility
Psoriasis
High blood pressure
Testing for Vitamin D levels is a standard blood test that your GP can request for you. Many surgeries have a nurse who can take the blood test there for your convenience. While serum 25 Hydroxyvitamin D under 50 nmol/L may be considered to be deficient, the optimal level is over 75 nmol/L.
What Causes Vitamin D Deficiency?
Some groups are considered to be at increased risk of deficiency, including:
People with darker skin
The elderly living in residential care
Those who are institutionalised
People who cover up most of their skin or spend little time outdoors
There is another cause for chronic vitamin D deficiency which involves a group of individuals who have a genetic alteration to the VDR gene. For these people, their DNA isn’t as efficient in instructing the body to produce Vitamin D Receptors compared to someone who doesn’t have the alteration. With less VDRs, less Vitamin D can be absorbed and converted.
A genetic test can identify whether you have this genetic alteration (also knows as a mutation or polymorphism). Some DNA profiles available in the UK test for genetics that we can reliably associate with potential health outcomes or dietary requirements. For some people identifying this VDR polymorphism can equip them to start a discussion with their doctor about whether they have an increased requirement for Vitamin D compared to the average person.
Identifying the optimal dosage for that individual can involve a process of trial and error until the right dosage is reached. In this case a doctor may prescribe an especially high dosage for a few weeks or months if the serum Vitamin D level is really low. These individuals often need to take a higher dosage of Vitamin D than a person without an increased need and may benefit from supplementing all year round.
Getting Vitamin D Through Food
We can consume some Vitamin D produced by other animals in the form of oily fish, cod liver oil, beef liver, egg yolks and cheese. Some foods are fortified with Vitamin D such as some dairy alternative milks, but if you are dairy free it is worth checking the label to make sure that they are fortified. Some mushrooms also contain a little Vitamin D. But these foods only contain small amounts and even if you are including plenty of animal-based foods in your diet it is unlikely that this will meet your daily needs.
Sunlight and Vitamin D
Natural daylight is by far the best way to meet your needs for Vitamin D during the spring and summer. It is recommended to get at least 20 minutes of light exposure on your skin, so doing so before the peak hours of sun before applying sun cream is recommended. Exposing arms and legs also helps absorb more Vitamin D. During most of the autumn and winter, the sunlight isn’t strong enough to provide enough Vitamin D for the average person. The NHS recommends that everyone considers supplementing with Vitamin D between October and March. Here’s more information about what the NHS recommends for Vitamin D deficiency.
Types of Supplements
According to the NHS, 10 micrograms which is equivalent to 800 IU (International Units) is adequate for non-risk groups. Many supplements are likely to come in 1000 IU doses which is still well within the safe range for individuals without an increased requirement.
Vitamin D can be found in many multivitamin supplements. If using a multivitamin, it is worth checking whether the dose is at least 10 micrograms or 800 IU to make sure you meet your daily requirement. You can also buy Vitamin D as a supplement on its own, or in formulas designed to support bone health. Including Vitamin K2 with the Vitamin D can also be beneficial. Capsule form suits some individuals, while some may find spray or drop forms are more easily absorbed.
Ensuring that children have adequate Vitamin D intake is also very important, especially for infants. See the NHS’s guidance on what is best for young children. Children’s Vitamin D can also come in a variety of formulations, including jellies, drops and sprays.
Tracking Your Vitamin D
It can take a while to feel the benefit of improving your Vitamin D levels. Retesting after a few weeks if you have previously been deficient can help to ensure that your level is within the optimal range. You can also ask your doctor to test your Vitamin D levels if you know at certain times of year you might be at risk of deficiency or you recognise familiar symptoms arising. Being aware of your requirement and how to make sure you are getting enough will help you to feel better in yourself in the long-run.
If you would like advice on how nutritional therapy can support your immunity, contact me at info@victoriabellnutrition.co.uk
How to Bounce Back from a Stomach Bug
It’s that time of year – we’ve all got so much to look forward to over the next few weeks and then we hear that a dreaded sickness bug has hit at work, school, or worse, within the family. There’s too much to do for you to be off your feet (or on the loo) for several days!
But by the time someone you’ve spent any time around becomes symptomatic, it’s probably too late – you’re either going to come down with it too, or you’ve struck lucky this time. The last thing anybody needs is to spend the next few weeks avoiding people due to a fear of becoming ill.
Anyone who has nursed one or more children through a particularly bad bout of sickness, or been through it themselves can relate to the anxiety that they can feel when the next wave of stomach bugs reportedly hits.
So, what can be done? First of all, it is good to understand what causes stomach bugs in the first place.
How Stomach Bugs Spread
The symptoms of a stomach bug and food poisoning can be quite similar and typically involve some or all, of the following:
Sickness
Nausea
Loss of appetite
Diarrhoea
Fever and chills
Abdominal pain and cramping
Muscle aches
Fatigue
Headaches
Dizziness
It’s really important to know when to seek medical advice, especially in children or with prolonged symptoms. See the NHS for advice on what to do.
Food poisoning most often involves harmful bacteria or parasites which have not been killed off by safe food preparation methods or food that has not been stored properly. Bacterial or parasitic gastrointestinal infections can be transmitted between people too, but most often a stomach bug is caused by a virus such as the norovirus, rotavirus, adenovirus and astrovirus.
Viruses hijack our cells and use them to multiply and spread throughout the body. They can be spread by bodily fluids, therefore often by saliva or mucus being dispersed into the air or via commonly used surfaces such as door handles and shared towels. So coughing, sneezing and not washing hands properly are some of the biggest culprits of the spread!
What to do When Sickness and Diarrhoea Hits
Mostly importantly, staying at home and resting are best whilst you are unwell.
Seek medical advice as soon as possible if your symptoms are severe - as above, here’s the NHS’s advice on diarrhoa and vomiting.
If you feel dizzy or especially weak, see if someone can be at home with you.
Sip water regularly and if you have a prolonged period of sickness and diarrhoea, you could try naturally replacing fluids and lost electrolytes with coconut water.
It is no longer recommended to avoid all food – if you feel hungry you can try small amounts of bland foods if they will stay down. Good choices include bread, toast, bananas, rice, simple broths and soups.
Here are my Top 8 Tips to Support Your Recovery from Sickness and Diarrhoea
1. Take things slowly – if your digestion is still quite sensitive after the main symptoms have subsided, reintroduce foods slowly and stick to bland foods for a while until you feel better. Try little and often rather than large meals, unless you feel better by not eating too regularly. You may find that dairy doesn’t go down well for a while but don’t worry – keep it to a minimum for a little while then try and consume more when you feel better.
2. Use good quality foods to rebuild your strength – oat cakes or porridge oats can help, add water or an unsweetened dairy alternative if you are struggling temporarily with dairy. Small amounts of poultry, fish or eggs are good for protein, ripe fruits and wholegrain rice for carbohydrates. Include leafy greens for nutrients.
3. Try a homemade gut soothing drink – this recipe will help to replace electrolytes, calm the gut and soothe sore muscles: Cut 4-6 inches of ginger into thin slices and simmer in 1 litre of water for 15 minutes. Pour the liquid through a sieve into a jug and allow to cool. Add juice from 3 lemons, add to the water with half a teaspoon of sea salt. Have one to two cups per day, cold or gently warmed. Keep in the fridge for 1-2 days.
4. Try other non-caffeinated drinks such as peppermint, chamomile, lemon and ginger and lemon balm teas. Ideally drink warm or room temperature drinks to avoid giving your gut extra work to do.
5. Minimise sugars – you may find that you experience some bloating as your gut bacteria has a little field day whilst it is building back up. Sugars are likely to exacerbate the problem, so try to consume whole fruits and vegetables to get your energy, alongside good quality meats, fish and whole grains.
6. Repopulate your gut – with the effort of purging and evacuating the virus, your gut has most likely also flushed out some of your beneficial bacteria. So, once your digestion has settled a little, you may benefit from some beneficial bacteria-boosting foods such as live natural yogurt, kefir and sauerkraut. Taking a probiotic which is well tested for supporting immunity or more specifically recovering from gastric illnesses may also help.
7. Limit fatty foods – your digestion may have a difficult time dealing with these for a while. So use minimal fat in cooking, go for leaner meats, grill, bake or steam rather than frying.
8. Take activity carefully – when recovering, even walking across the room can feel like an effort! Start small with walking and some gentle stretches when you are ready. If you are a gym bunny or are used to endurance training, you may need to build up to it gradually. Exercise is a drain on your resources and if you are not well recovered, your immune system may continue to be vulnerable.
If you would like help with getting your energy back, or supporting your digestion and immunity, contact me at info@victoriabellnutrition.co.uk
Gut Healing Foods
More and more, we are starting to hear the countless ways in which gut health is linked to your overall health. No doubt you’ve heard the phrase “you are what you eat” but the health of your gut determines how what you need from your food gets where it needs to go. Your gut also has a part in keeping everything in balance, including:
Hormones
Neurotransmitters (brain chemical messengers)
Moods, memory, concentration and alertness
Metabolic, physical mental energy
Immunity
Skin, bone, muscle, joint and eye health
Detoxification
Why the gut has such a big effect on your health:
The lining that reaches from inside your mouth down to the other end, is considered to interact with the external environment. Everything that passes through comes from outside of your body, and it is only when those external contents cross through the lining that they have technically become internal within your body. This includes food, chemicals in your food but also microbes such as viruses, bacteria and parasites.
The epithelium which lines your intestines has microscopic little gaps called tight junctions between the cells. These junctions are meant to remain “tight”, but they loosen a little to let digested food particles through. Friendly bacteria help to provide protection, stopping harmful microbes from getting through and helping control the tight junctions.
The tight junctions can become too loose or leaky for a number of reasons. As they start to let bigger food particles and microbes through, these can start to reach the blood stream and your immune system can start to respond to these unwelcome objects by starting a cascade of inflammation.
Your liver has the job of detoxifying normal products of digestion and anything else that has made it into the blood stream. If it is overloaded, it will start to pump some of the toxins out to the skin to be excreted through the glands. This can result in symptoms such as skin complaints, headaches, body aches, fatigue and brain fog.
How do you heal the gut?
If you are experiencing any number of symptoms of malaise, your gut may benefit from some support. Working with a nutritional therapist can help to identify some of the causes of any compromise to the integrity of your gut. Consulting with your GP is important, and standard or private tests are sometimes helpful.
Incorporating some healing foods is a great place to start in your quest for better health. If you are on any medications, always consult with a doctor before drastically changing your diet.
My Top 10 Gut Healing Foods:
1. Turmeric: The anti-inflammatory compound, curcumin is great for your gut and is available as a supplement. But using the whole food as a root or the powder will ensure that you benefit from the synergistic effect of all the powerful active compounds together. Add liberally to food such as curries, stews, shakes, scrambled egg, or try a golden milk or turmeric latte.
2. Onions: These can get the blame for gas if your microbiome is out of balance, but they are full of mucopolysaccharides – carbohydrates which feed your good gut bacteria and soothe your gut lining. They are also packed with antioxidants and help to kill harmful microbes.
3. Oats: Full of nutrients and like onions, they are also rich in mucopolysaccharides and betaglucans which support immunity.
4. Bone broth: For centuries this food has been consumed for it’s gut-friendly effects. Gelatin, collagen, proline, chondroitin and glycine, all released from bones support our own collagen production as well as providing the building blocks to repair joints and our gut lining. You can slow cook bones left over from your Sunday roast with some water, herbs and vegetables, or buy ready to eat bone broth.
5. Cruciferous vegetables: These are rich in phytonutrients such as glucosinolates, which support liver detoxification. This allows more toxins to be safely excreted, rather than them being recirculated via your bowels. The less toxins circulating in your system, the better you will feel. Include plenty of rocket, pak choi, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, horseradish, kale, radishes, spring greens, swede, turnips, watercress and wasabi. Eat cooked rather than raw if there is any concern about your thyroid.
6. Aloe vera juice: Full of antioxidants and known to soothe acid reflux, ulcers and relieve constipation. Go for a good quality product from the whole leaf, organic if the budget allows.
7. Slippery elm food: Rich in antioxidants, mucopolysaccharides and tannins which bind to damaged tissue and have a protective effect. Consume as a drink or eat like porridge, you can find this online or in health food stores.
8. Wheatgrass: High in nutrients, digestive enzymes and alkalising, wheatgrass is great for supporting digestion and healing inflammation. Add the powder to smoothies, fresh juices, hot drinks, porridge, salad dressings or homemade ice cream!
9. Coconut butter: As well as coconut oil, coconut butter contains coconut flesh which is used to make coconut flour and it’s full of fibre. The coconut fibre helps to feed a healthy microbiome, while the oil is anti-inflammatory. Use as an ingredient in healthy bakes, or you can melt and spread it like butter.
10. Grass fed ghee: This clarified butter has had all the lactose, casein and whey removed and is rich in Omega 3 essential fats, vitamins A, D E and K2 and is anti-inflammatory. Use to cook with, add to tea or coffee, or melt on top of vegetables. There are plenty of other healing foods to try, including ginger, garlic, artichokes, fermented foods, apple cider vinegar, pumpkin seeds and coconut oil.
The good news is that you don’t need to try everything at once. Start slowly, adding in a food at a time to fit in with your routine and take some time to test different foods out to see what works for you.
If you would like to find out more about how nutritional therapy can help with your gut health, contact me at info@victoriabellnutrition.co.uk.
Using Food to Relieve Acid Reflux
If you often experience acid reflux or heartburn, you probably know about it! However, symptoms can be vague for many people and hard to identify as being the result of acid reflux.
You may experience the following:
A burning sensation near the middle of your chest (heartburn)
Either a mildly or strongly strange or unpleasant taste in your mouth
A persistent dry cough or hiccups
Regurgitation of small amounts of food back into your mouth
Difficulty swallowing
A hoarse voice
Bloating and nausea
Bad breath
It is always worth discussing these symptoms with your doctor as a precaution. Medication such as over the counter antacids or prescription PPIs (proton pump inhibitors which stop so much acid being produced) such as omeprazole or lansoprazole may be recommended, but often these merely suppress the symptoms rather than address the causes. Find out how nutritional therapy can help with digestive health issues such as acid reflux.
What could be causing my acid reflux?
The pipe that carries food from your mouth to your stomach is called your oesophagus. At the bottom of the oesophagus, there is a valve called the Lower Oesophageal Sphincter (LOS or LES) which is designed to close after you have eaten to stop food or stomach acid from travelling back up into the mouth.
For a number of reasons, this sphincter can become lax or not close properly. Often the medical approach to resolve this has been to reduce stomach acid, but this can be problematic because if the stomach acid pH isn’t low enough or acidic enough, the LOS will not get the signal to close. Some other reasons for acid reflux include:
Inflammation
Hiatus hernia
Carbohydrate malabsorption
Underdeveloped digestive system (in babies)
Ageing
Pregnancy
Obesity
Large meals
Smoking
Medications (ibuprofen, muscle relaxers, blood pressure meds, antibiotics and aspirin)
Supplements (potassium and iron)
Helicobacter Pylori bacterial infection
Excessive exercise
Magnesium deficiency
If you frequently experience the symptoms of acid reflux, it is highly likely that you have done your homework on which foods are likely to trigger it. These may include some of the foods and drinks that you regularly consume and if you’re particularly attached to some of these, it may be unwelcome news to you that you may benefit from cutting down on them. Typical trigger foods include:
Rich, fatty, fried and processed foods
Spicy foods
Alcohol
Caffeine
Chocolate
Artificial sweeteners
Citrus
Tomatoes
Peppermint
Pickled foods
Vinegar
Many of these foods have great health benefits, so cutting them out entirely may not be ideal. Having dietary restrictions can be difficult practically, socially and can be hugely inconvenient.
Moderation is key, and as much as possible, eating a diet rich in good quality whole fresh foods including lots of water, fruits and vegetables, whole grains, eggs, dairy (if tolerated) fresh fish, poultry and small amounts of good fats and red meat.
Eating smaller meals, chewing your food properly, not bending down after eating and eating your last meal at least three hours before bed are all practical ways to minimise the effects of acid reflux. Some gentle exercise such as stretching and relaxation practices also help to reduce the stress on your gut. But also, there are some foods you could include which could really help keep the lid on acid reflux.
Here are my Top Ten Foods to Make Acid Reflux Go Away:
1. Ginger – has anti-inflammatory properties and is great for healing the gut and supporting immunity. Eat fresh or cooked in meals or add to hot water and drink as a tea.
2. Pineapple – contains bromelain which helps with digestion and it also reduces inflammation and pain. Enjoy on it’s own, in a fruit salad or in a smoothie.
3. Fermented foods such as sauerkraut and kombucha – these are rich in probiotic (friendly) bacteria which pass through the digestive tract, displacing harmful bacteria on the way. These foods may also feed the resident gut flora and calm inflammation.
4. Apples – high in fibre and packed full of quercetin – another anti-inflammatory food.
5. Coconut Oil – is known to have antimicrobial compounds in it which can help to reduce infections in the digestive tract. It is also known to be soothing for the nervous system and the gut. Use in small amounts in cooking or try having a teaspoon of it when reflux hits.
6. Wild salmon – contains an antioxidant compound called astaxanthin which has been shown to relieve reflux symptoms and a useful nutrient to use with a H Pylori infection. Enjoy 1-3 portions per week. Fresh is best but you can also use good quality tinned wild salmon.
7. Almond butter – a great swap for peanut butter which can be another trigger of acid reflux. Almond butter is lower in saturated fat, and much higher in vitamin E and magnesium. Great eaten with fruit, oatcakes or vegetable sticks, or add to your porridge.
8. Celery – you either love it or hate it, but this food is rich in antioxidant and anti-inflammatory compounds. It is alkalising and full of water – great for hydration. Eat as a snack or use as an ingredient in salads, stews or soups.
9. Spinach – full of B vitamins and fibre – both great for digestion. Spinach also contains compounds which are naturally alkalising, helping to minimise acid reflux. Best eaten raw because heating does make the spinach a little acidic. Enjoy in a salad or thrown into a green smoothie.
10. Sunflower seeds – high in vitamin E which helps reduce acid reflux and repair damage of the lining of the gut. Great sprinkled on breakfast, salads or eaten as a snack.
There are so many other healing foods that you could add to your arsenal, including chamomile, watermelon, oats, turmeric, bone broth, artichokes, papaya, kefir, apple cider vinegar, green leafy vegetables, artichokes, asparagus, cucumbers, pumpkin & other squash, small amounts of healthy fats and raw honey. Give some a go and see how you feel!
If you would like to understand how nutritional therapy can help you to resolve your digestive health symptoms, feel free to contact me at info@victoriabellnutrition.co.uk.
Foods to Improve Digestion
Food. We need it, we can’t live without it.
But if our digestion isn’t great, food can feel like an adversary.
Some foods we might fear, or want to avoid. Perhaps we know that the foods we crave so much are making us feel below par. It can be a constant distraction, something we feel the need to plan for, control, measure or restrict.
We’re all unique and so food may make us all feel differently. But many people might experience some of the following:
constant tummy trouble
indigestion
acid reflux
trapped wind
bloating
constipation
feeling like food hangs around way too long so you feel sluggish all day
But what if we flip our view of food on its head? See food as a medicine, rather than making us reach out for the over the counter medicines?
Over two thousand years ago, the ancient Greek philosopher Hippocrates was quoted as saying “Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food.”
Well before modern science, medicine and technology, it was known that our bodies are built to naturally maintain balance in health, and that nature provided everything we needed for our bodies to thrive and heal from illness and injury.
Although food may trigger uncomfortable symptoms, and it may be partly down to what has been done to the food before it reaches our plates (think chemicals, pollution, processing, radiation and GMO, for example), this is only part of the whole picture. A whole host of lifestyle and environmental factors influence your digestive health, and narrowing the causes down to work out what do can be equally complicated.
While you may suspect a food intolerance or some other underlying health issue that may take some time to identify, there are plenty of healing foods you can try NOW to help relieve some discomfort.
My Top 10 Foods to Improve Digestion (rather than using over the counter medications to dampen your symptoms!):
1. Bitter foods, including rocket, kale, radicchio, dill, dandelion greens and citrus: These encourage the production in the stomach of a substance called gastrin, which stimulates the production of:
stomach acid and digestive enzymes which help break your food down
and bile which helps you to digest fats
Use these at the beginning of a meal, to prepare your gut for digestion. A bitter greens salad dressed with some olive, hemp, or cold pressed rapeseed oil is ideal.
2. Dandelion tea and peppermint tea: also bitter, teas can also be used as a digestive after eating. Peppermint has been shown to calm down the involuntary spasms that some people experience after eating as a wave of cramp-like feelings in the abdomen. For some people the effect is comparable to prescription anti-spasmodics used for irritable bowel syndrome.
3. Oats: a gluten free grain, great for slow release energy, containing fibre which can improve bowel movements and beta glucans which help calm the immune system. But their star quality is that they help to coat and protect the gut lining, giving it a chance to repair itself. Some people prefer gluten free oats, grown and processed in environments which ensure they can’t come into residue from other crops, such as wheat. But the protein avenin can be too similar to gluten for people with coeliac disease.
4. Bananas: these are high in potassium which helps peristalsis, the wave of muscle spasms in the gut which push food through. Full of pectin which aids digestion, insoluble fibre which bulks out your stool (a good thing!) and soluble fibre which forms a gel in your stomach, making you feel full for longer and slowing down energy release. The fibre also feeds your good gut bacteria and may also stop harmful bacteria from sticking to the gut lining.
5. Kefir: available in dairy, coconut or water form, home made or shop bought, kefir is full of probiotic (friendly) bacteria. These bacteria may not take up residence in the gut for long, but as they pass through, they can displace and move the less friendly bacteria on. People who have an overgrowth of gut bacteria may experience some gurgling or bloating at first, so it is worth trying over a few days or weeks to see if this settles down. Kefir made from dairy has already had most of the lactose broken down by bacteria, making it digestible for lactose intolerance.
6. Water: it almost always appears somewhere on every list! Water is needed for lots of chemical reactions in the body, including those that break foods down and release energy and nutrients for them. And of course, it hydrates the stool so that it can pass through easily. Aim for two litres a day, mostly between meals.
7. Chia seeds and Ground Flax Seeds: high in fibre and Omega 3 essential fats, these are great for relieving constipation. Try adding to porridge, muesli, smoothies, or as a chia pudding.
8. Fennel: used therapeutically for respiratory and other infections, it is also very soothing for the gut and stimulates digestion. Enjoy cooked, added to a salad, or use the seeds to make a tea. Shop bought fennel tea is also available.
9. Apple cider vinegar: anecdotally, most people who use it to improve digestion find that it does help. But if you have too much stomach acid, this might not be for you. You can either add it to a glass of water before a meal, starting with a teaspoon and working your way up to a tablespoon, or you could mix it with some oil and dress your bitter greens salad above.
10. Lots of plant foods: increasing the quantity and variety of fruits and vegetables is one of the best things you can do for your health, and there are so many to choose from! Diversity in your diet, paired with a gradual increase in fibre, will help to balance your microbiome.