The importance of gut flora for your immune system
There are many different elements that influence our body’s immune system, but gut flora is probably one of the most understated, yet important ones. Most of us tend to think that getting enough vitamin C in winter time will keep the cold away and that multivitamin supplements alone will be enough to keep our immune system strong, but we completely underestimate and forget about the impact of gut flora on our immunity.
The reason most of us forget about gut flora is very simple; we just don’t know that it plays any role or what it is. When we talk about gut flora, we are actually talking about a series of bacteria that have a positive effect on our overall health and can be ingested by eating certain foods. Gut flora has a great effect on our immune system, as will be explained in this article.
What is gut flora and what does it do?
Starting at a very early age, just days after exiting the womb, an ecosystem starts developing within our gut. This ecosystem contains a number of different bacteria or microbiota that interact with our body on many levels. These bacteria have different functions and science has proved that they play a crucial role in many of our body’s systems, including the innate and adaptive immune system.
If you have ever wondered how to boost your immune system, improving the quality of your gut flora may be a way to go. The gut is a crucial part of the body in that everything we consume goes there first and gets filtered before entering the bloodstream. The more resistant your gut, the less of a chance you get an infection or a disease.
The thing most people don’t know is that we ingest harmful bacteria almost daily. Practically no surface from which we eat is completely clean, and we get in touch with bad bacteria all the time. However, thanks to our gut, most of these get filtered out, destroyed and expelled from our organism.
There are several ways in which our gut flora can improve the quality of our immune system. Good bacteria activate the immune system of epithelial cells that serve as an inner lining of our gut and the interaction of these cells with the gut flora is crucial for immunity. Furthermore, gut flora regulates the pH levels of our gut, making the gut just acidic enough for pathogens to be unable to survive in it.
Finally, the presence of a sufficient amount of these good bacteria means that potential pathogens do not have the space to live in or the food to feed on, which means they die before getting into your bloodstream. For all of these reasons, having a healthy gut flora is crucial to keeping a healthy immune system.
How do I keep my gut flora healthy?
When we are talking about healthy gut flora, we are in fact talking about a diverse one. The more types of microbiota you have living in your gut, the more positive effects you can expect from them. Each bacterium can influence a number of chemical reactions, so the best way to keep your gut flora healthy is to keep it diverse.
In order to have a diverse gut flora, you will have to eat a diverse diet as well, which means adding different types of fruit, vegetables, meat and fermented foods to your diet, which will all increase the diversity of the bacteria in your gut.
Eating healthy and natural foods will give your gut the resilience it needs to combat infections. For the most part, processed food that we often eat is almost useless in terms of gut flora, so try to make your diet as natural based as possible and your gut will thank you for it.
What else can I do?
We wonder how to boost our immune system so often, yet we do so little to actually boost it for the most part. Other than keeping a healthy gut flora, keeping well-nourished and fed with different types of minerals and vitamins is also crucial in maintaining a healthy immune system. To do this, it is important to eat a healthy diet, which is consistent with keeping the gut flora healthy as well. This way, you can kill two flies with a single stone and make your immunity rock solid.
Of course, since not all the minerals and vitamins can be so easily ingested through diet, consuming dietary supplements such as Vit2GO! Immune System Booster can help you maintain your immunity at a high level even when your diet does lack some of the crucial micronutrients. Immune System Booster makes sure that you have all the vitamins your immune system requires in your body and in combination with a healthy gut flora, it is bound to take your immunity to a completely new level and make you much less susceptible to disease.
If you want to keep your immune system truly healthy, eating lots of natural food that improves the diversity of your gut flora as well as the levels of micronutrients in your body is crucial. Using Immune System Booster as an extra way to add vitamins and minerals is a sure way not to miss out on any important micronutrients and remain well-nourished every day of the week.
