You might be surprised to learn that how you feel and even look every day is tied to your intestines. To maintain good health, your intestines must absorb nutrients properly and help your body to eliminate waste and toxins.
Your intestines, which lie between the stomach and rectum, are part of the Gl tract or digestive system. In the small and large intestines, food is broken down and absorbed into the bloodstream, providing your cells and organs with the energy they need to function. Your intestines do this with the help of good bacteria (also called microflora).
These “good bacteria” aid digestion, promote vital nutrient production, maintain pH (acid-base) balance, and prevent proliferation of unwelcomed, harmful, pathogenic bacteria. From the time of your birth your body is inhabited by microorganisms.
The microorganisms in our guts perform a host of useful functions, such as the fermentation of unused energy substrates, training the immune system, preventing growth of harmful, pathogenic bacteria, regulating the development of the gut, producing vitamins and producing hormones that direct our bodies to store fats.
Changes in diet, stress and aging and other factors can disrupt this delicate balance.
Food poisoning is often caused by eating organisms or toxins present in food or drinks. Staphylococcus or E. coli is one of the commonest bacteria which results in food poisoning. The reason this kind of a contamination happens is due to the improper handling of the food or drink, . Even though it is a very common condition it can get really bad depending upon the degree of contamination.
Some common foods that can cause food poisoning if proper care is not taken consist of raw poultry, unpasteurized milk, red meat, poisonous mushrooms, pesticides on fruits and vegetables, egg and raw egg products, raw meat and even water.
Sometimes the symptoms are so mild that we hardly register it in our minds. Normally the symptoms develop within one hour but it can also show up later on, between 12-48 hours after ingesting the contaminated food. It can lasts for more than two days but, depending on its seriousness, it may take around a week to recover.
You may have bouts of vomiting, abdominal cramps and pain, diarrhea and similar other pains. If the symptoms are very serious you may have chills and fever, bloody stools, dehydration, muscle aches and weakness. In rare cases it may even lead to brain damage causing paralysis or death.
Some of the common causes of food poisoning are pesticide, chemicals, heavy metals, parasites, fungi, viruses and bacteria.
The trouble with pesticides and weedkillers is that it ultimately contaminates the foods we ingest. This in turn has to impact on the gut microbiota or intestinal bugs.
The microorganisms in our guts perform a host of useful functions, such as fermentation of unused energy substrates, training the immune system, preventing growth of harmful, pathogenic bacteria, regulating the development of the gut, producing vitamins and producing hormones to direct our bodies to store fats.
Episodes of food poisoning could in effect cause an imbalance in the populations of microorganisms in our gut and depending on how the balance is restored within our gut it could result in some people putting on extra weight.
Regrettably the big chemical companies advise farmers to spray their wheat crops with the glyphosate a few weeks before harvest – to kill the crop and remove weeds to make it easier for them to harvest.
Unfortunately for us glyphosate doesn’t break down immediately, and can follow the grain into food manufacturing processes. Tests on pesticide residues in food have found that in the UK, for example, as much as 30% of UK bread contained this weedkiller.
Bacteria are a major culprit for food poisoning, due to their capacity to multiply.
To prevent the contamination of our food and drink we should make sure that our kitchens are clean and that naturally includes the storage container. We should always handle raw and cooked food with the proper precautions and cook foods to the maximum temperature to avoid the presence of bacteria. Canned foods should be heated before tasting.
You can stop outbreaks of food poisoning by either by minimizing the spread of bacteria, preventing their growth or killing bacteria with proper measures of cooking.
Should you suspect that you or someone in your family has contracted food poisoning the best thing you can do is take them to a medical practitioner for treatment.
Another food contamination is that of Genetically Modified Organisms. Various scientific studies have proved that GMOs can be harmful to human health and yet they persist in trying to force it down our throats.
I personally feel that the more we know where our food comes from, what is being done to our foods before and after harvest, the better informed choices we can make the healthier we will be.
Most of us unfortunately know that with the creep of middle age extra pounds tend to gravitate to our midriff – the dreaded middle age spread. However, new research suggests that there is a less obvious reason for the dreaded spare tire
and that there is another less visible reason to fucus on our gut if we want to loose weight.
Science has taken a closer interest in the relationship between our intestinal bacteria and weight gain.
Scientist revealed that our intestines harbor a whole world of bacteria aka gut microbiota that may play a considerable role in whether your body will store the food you eat as extra pounds. It stands to reason that this complex community of microorganism species living in our digestive tracts are not there by accident and that there would be a relationship between the gut bacteria and your weight.
Gut microorganisms benefit us by gleaning the energy from the fermentation of undigested carbohydrates and the subsequent absorption of short-chain fatty acids.
Our bodies each carry about 100 trillion microorganisms in our intestines, a number ten times greater than the total number of human cells in the body.
Research suggests that the relationship between gut flora and humans is not merely commensal or non-harmful coexistence, but rather a mutualistic relationship.
The microorganisms perform a host of useful functions, such as the previously mentioned fermentation of unused energy substrates, training the immune system, preventing growth of harmful, pathogenic bacteria, regulating the development of the gut, producing vitamins and producing hormones to direct our bodies to store fats.
The populations of microorganisms vary widely among different individuals but stay fairly constant within an individual over time, even though some alterations may occur with changes in lifestyle, diet and age
For many people putting on the extra weight could be the result of an imbalance in the populations of microorganisms in your gut.
Furthermore inflammatory signaling can promote a condition called metabolic syndrome, which causes weight gain, high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels and a higher risk for developing diabetes and heart disease.
