Tips for a healthy large intestine

Following on from my bowel health checklist.  I want to focus on the large intestine whose job is to take all the remaining water and nutrients our any any food that comes its way and turn whats left into compact stools.  When things start going wrong with your large intestine, you usually get inflamation and this can lead to a range of symptoms including:

  • Stomach pain
  • Cramps
  • Bloating
  • Flatulence
  • frequent diarrhoea or constipation

So here are my tips to improve your large intestine:

Drink more water and eat more fibre
Increasing the amount of water your drink and upping your fibre intake with foods like well cooked brown rice, oatmeal, prunes, kiwi fruit or flaxseeds.  This should produce at least one bowel movment a day and will avoid undigested waste sitting around in your gut.

Get Moving
A sedetary lifestyle can slow down your bowels.

Take slippery elm capsules.
A natural way to ease constipation.

Minimise stress levels
Stress upsets your digestion and reduced your bacteriodetes levels.

Eat more vegetables
Bacteriodetes love fruits, beans, pulses and fibre so east lots of them.  Where as firmicutes thrive on fat and sugar so eat less sugar!

Up your selenium
High levels of selenium are linked to low colon cancer risk.  So increase your intake of brazil nuts, slamon, onions, oats and brown rice as they are high in selenium.

Eat a wide variety of foods
Diversity of foods equals a diversity of gut bacteria.

References

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4421088/

 

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