Nobody likes getting older. There’s a huge industry for “anti-aging” products and therapies that make you look and feel younger. Some of these are based on good evidence – and some are not! It may surprise you that one of the major causes of aging isn’t a lack of Botox or too few vacations – but rather poor gut health. We already know that poor gut health is a major cause of many health issues. When you suffer from an imbalance of gut bacteria due to dysbiosis, your gut function may be significantly impaired.
Poor gut health typically results in a range of unpleasant symptoms, from digestive upsets and skin trouble to poor mood and sluggish brain function. This is because everything in your body connects to your gut! There is now substantial evidence that your gut microbiome plays a major role in your overall health and wellbeing. And that includes aging.
Here are four ways that poor gut health can make you age faster!
1) Poor Nutrient Absorption
Research has shown that as we age, our ability to absorb and utilize many nutrients becomes less efficient. As a result, our nutrient requirements tend to increase. This is why the most recent set of nutrition recommendations issued by the Institute of Medicine includes separate recommendations for people age 70 and older.
Poor gut health can lead to poor absorption, in which your small intestine cannot properly absorb nutrients from the food you eat into your bloodstream. This can contribute to low nutrient levels and imbalances that affect how your body functions.
Dietary needs change with age, and this includes both macronutrients (proteins, carbohydrates and fats) – and micronutrients (vitamins and minerals), or both.
Your body is dependent on a steady supply of nutrients for proper cell repair and function. Without the right vitamins and minerals, every part of your body will suffer: your joints, skin, energy levels, immune system, brain function and more.
As a result, you may begin to feel “old” well before your time!
2) Poor Inflammatory Response
Having inflammation is a common factor in many health issues. Inflammation has been linked to many age-related conditions – and it is often associated with imbalances in gut bacteria. Research from the Netherlands has shed new light on how an imbalance of the gut microbiome may be contributing to what they have termed “inflammaging”: inflammation in the elderly. Inflammaging is low-grade chronic inflammation that occurs as we get older.
This link was made when researchers transplanted gut bacteria from aged mice into young healthy mice. They could see that the young mice then developed the same response as the elderly donors. This research shows how your gut bacteria may influence inflammatory processes in the body. It may then be possible to support a healthier inflammatory response through gut health. At the same time, helping to keep inflammation in check by maintaining a healthy gut may play a role in healthy aging. That’s why probiotic supplements can be so useful for supporting gut health as we age.
3) Poor Gut Health May Lead To More Wrinkles
It’s been found that digestive problems and skin disorders are intricately linked, which means conditions such as small intestine bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) can make your skin age faster. When there is an imbalance of ‘bad’ bacteria in your small intestine, your skin is more likely to show the signs of aging.
More studies have shown that increased intestinal permeability is common in people with skin problems. If untreated, leaky gut can lead to intestinal toxins entering the bloodstream, causing an inflammatory response from the immune system – and inflammation on the skin. This kind of stress can impair the integrity and protective function of the epidermal layer of your skin, causing it to wrinkle and sag prematurely.
4) Poor Gut Health Can Reduce Your Energy Levels
You’ll often hear older people complaining about tiredness. This could actually be due to their poor gut health rather than their age! A healthy gut microbiome is essential for adequate energy production. Strong evidence suggests that your gut bacteria play a major role in how active you are.
Many studies show how the gut microbiome contributes significantly to how well we digest our food. The microbiome is dependent on nutrients from the carbohydrates we eat each day. They ferment the carbs that aren’t able to be digested in the gut (these are called dietary fiber) and produce strains of probiotic bacteria such as Bifidobacterium, Fecalibacterium, and Enterobacteria. These in turn produce short chain fatty acids (SCFA) such as butyrate, propionate and acetate, which are rich sources of energy for us.
If your gut is lacking in the bacteria that carries out this fermentation process, you’ll also lack a major supply of energy.
What Can You Do?
Nothing can stop you aging, but looking after your gut health can certainly slow it down! Boosting your gut health with a healthy diet and probiotic supplements can make a huge difference to the effect that your advancing years have on your skin, brain and overall wellbeing.
Make sure that you eat a diet that is low in inflammatory foods like added sugars and gluten. Avoid junk food and anything with a long list of ingredients that you don’t recognize (like these 56 names for sugar!). Instead, eat high-fiber vegetables and fruit, whole foods wherever possible, and some fermented foods to boost your gut health.
Probiotic supplements can help too, but most are almost completely ineffective. Also make sure that your probiotic contains at least 5 strains and at least 10 billion CFUs of bacteria.
If you eat the right foods, focus on reducing inflammation, and take a good probiotic, your gut health will improve. Over time, that will slow down the aging process in your skin, brain, joints, and elsewhere. The secret to healthy aging is in the gut!
While you’re here, check out why the plant-based movement is growing faster than ever.
