IBS CAUSES that aren’t spoken about enough, but are backed by science…
Do you want to manage IBS properly? You first need to figure out the true causes and target these with treatment approaches, and not just put a plaster on the symptoms.
1. Stress
Stress can cause a flare up in symptoms as it can directly affect gut motility and permeability processes. Longer term, indirect problems of stress can crop up, such as low stomach acid. This leads me on to point 2 nicely...
2. Low stomach acid
Stomach acid helps you to break down your food properly. And if you're not doing this properly? You can become more reactive to these foods that aren’t being digested properly – hello symptoms and ‘trigger foods’.
Stomach acid also helps to fend off bad bacteria, and protects your balance of good gut bacteria. Welcome to my third point….
3. Dysbiosis or gut bacteria imbalance
There’s arguably more chat and research on this point than the others, so it’s become pretty clear that protecting your good gut bacteria balance is vital – but how?
Consider my first two points, manage stress and protect your stomach acid at all costs.
Then, incorporate a varied diet rich in anti-inflammatory wholefoods (limit processed foods), incorporate natural prebiotics, probitoics and postbiotics - all of which help to protect your good gut bacteria and encourage microbiome diversity. Plus, alongside a varied diet, incorporate helpful lifestyle habits such as proper hydration, sleep, movement, sunlight, and work to correcting any nutrient deficiencies – all of these have benefits for your gut bacteria (and beyond) ✨
