Baldwin County Residents Learn How Gut Health Affects Skin

So you’ve had another acne outbreak. You change your face wash and moisturizer, switch your shampoo and laundry detergent, but nothing seems to be working. So if changing items on the surface of the skin aren’t helping, what if the issue is much deeper? 

The Importance of the Gut

For most of us, we consider the gut the place that our food goes to be digested and eventually secreted. While we assume this process is simple, the reality is that it holds much greater value. 

In fact, this large system holds about 80% of the body’s immunity. There are anywhere from 300-500 different species of bacteria in the digestive tract, many of which are vital to a healthy body. Taking care of the digestive tract can help maintain a healthy immune system, fight obesity, and improve depression symptoms.

Impacting the Skin

Like the gut, the skin, or epidermis, also plays an important part in immunity. It is a barrier for harmful bacteria and viruses trying to get inside and when compromised, it can impact the digestive tract. Therefore, it makes sense that the gut can also impact this outside organ. 

When ingesting food, the digestive system breaks this food down and carries some nutrients to the body for maintenance, healing, and repair. Remember how a baby’s nose will turn orange when fed a lot of carrots or sweet potatoes? That is because nutrients from these vegetables are being taken to the epidermis. Therefore, it makes sense that a leaky gut, or one that is irritated or inflamed from certain foods or a bacterial imbalance many manifest as acne, rosacea or eczema on the skin.

Improving GI Health

So how can we care for our gut in a way that will impact the health of our skin? Consider some of the ideas below: 

• Sleep – try to shoot for 7-8 hours to keep the digestive tract running smoothly
• Drink water – and plenty of it to aid the mucosal lining of the intestines and keep a healthy balance of good bacteria
• Consider a pre- or probiotic – ingesting one of these can help with the bacteria in the gastrointestinal biome. A prebiotic is essentially a “food” for bacteria to grow, while a probiotic is live bacteria.
• Eliminate stress – stress can negatively impact the body and should be taken seriously. Try to find methods that eliminate stress and promote relaxation.
• Check your diet – some foods cause irritation and could lead to bloating, diarrhea, nausea, fatigue, and many other uncomfortable symptoms. Consider eliminating different types of foods (sugar, dairy, wheat), to see if you have a sensitivity that could be causing your GI tract distress.

Additionally, many see the benefit of eating fermented foods to increase good bacteria and taking collagen supplements for healing and repair.

Get Help

While the health of the digestive system may seem as simple as supplementing with pre- and probiotics, it really is so much more than that. Learning how to improve health through diet and lifestyle changes is just one of the many things that we at The Gut Authority do best. So if you are looking to improve the appearance of your skin from the inside out, give us a call today!