How To Restore Gut Flora After Common Treatments: 9 Ways

RELATED: Episode 12: What’s Functional Medicine’s Role In Gut Healing?

In this article:

1. Take Probiotics and Prebiotics to Decrease the Impact of Your Medication
2. Increase Your Intake of Fiber-Rich Foods to Feed Your Bacteria
3. Consume More Fermented Foods in Your Diet to Enhance Postbiotics
4. Reduce Your Stress to Avoid Disturbing the Microbiome
5. Get Some Vitamin D to Boost the Immune System
6. Eat Antioxidants to Prevent the Formation of Free Radicals
7. Avoid Sugar and Processed Foods to Control Growth of Candida
8. Consume Bone Broth to Help Repair the Gut
9. Skip Gluten and Dairy to Reduce Food Sensitivities

How Common Treatments Affect Gut Bacteria and Gut Health

Through research and medical studies, the medical industry now understands that beneficial organisms are living within our intestines. Making sure that there is a balance of good and bad gut bacteria is essential to staying healthy. There are colonies of beneficial gut bacteria in your digestive tract. These colonies help your body to digest and absorb food while fighting off bad gut bacteria.

Common treatments are a big threat to our overall gut health as they kill off all bacteria they come in contact with. Even the good and beneficial bacteria that you want to nurture and grow. As a result of taking a course of treatment, gut flora may be diminished. Keep reading to see what you can do to help your body to heal gut flora after common treatments.

These Tips Teach You How to Restore Gut Flora

1. Take Probiotics and Prebiotics to Decrease the Impact of Your Treatment

Probiotics may help the good and beneficial bacteria to grow back quicker than it would without probiotic supplements. By taking probiotic supplements, you can help to keep one strain of gut flora from taking over. Restoring gut flora after antibiotics are essential as you need a diverse gut microbiome to remain healthy. When you’re taking a treatment, you can kill bad bacteria—and sometimes the good ones. You may also disturb the functions of the remaining microorganisms, and the disruption can lead to digestive symptoms. You need probiotics to help increase the population of colony-forming units in the gut. Consider it as replenishing what you’re losing. Meanwhile, prebiotics can help feed the remaining microorganisms in your digestive tract. It’s like helping them survive and thrive despite the treatment. There are many sources for probiotics, but the best probiotic is one that also contains fungi such as BIOHM Probiotics. Many people are not aware they have fungi in their gut too, along with viruses and bacteria.

2. Increase Your Intake of Fiber-Rich Foods to Feed Your Bacteria

You can support your probiotics supplement with the right diet, beginning with an increased intake of fiber. Fiber does a lot of good for your gut health:

• It acts like a broom, sweeping toxic by-products and body waste out.
• Fiber can make you feel fuller for longer periods, which is necessary since some antibiotics can leave you feeling hungry.
• The insoluble fiber (or the one the body cannot digest) makes an excellent source for prebiotics.

Restoring your gut flora with fiber means eating whole foods as often as possible. Some great sources for fiber are grains, nuts, and crunchy vegetables. You may also supplement your fiber intake with BIOHM Colon Cleanser. It contains a blend of extracts to help get your gut off to a clean start.

3. Consume More Fermented Foods in Your Diet to Enhance Postbiotics

Postbiotics are the metabolites, or the waste products, of microorganisms. Unlike human poo, they can help restore the healthy gut microbiome since they still produce biologic activity. They are potent enough to be potential complementary therapies for pre-term babies with a disease, according to a 2013 study.

To stimulate the production of postbiotics, you can consume fermented foods such as kimchi, kombucha tea, and sauerkraut. As the microorganisms further ferment these, they can create the metabolites. Many of these fermented foods are rich in lactobacilli. Lactobacilli is a type of bacteria the has benefits to your overall health. For instance, people who eat a lot of yogurt in their diet seem to have much more lactobacilli in their intestines. These people also tend to have less Enterobacteriaceae too. Enterobacteriaceae is a type of bacteria that is linked to some chronic diseases and inflammation. Taking probiotics supplements can help as well, especially if they contain multiple strains. Some of these can encourage bacteria to produce butyrate, which may be ideal for people with Crohn’s disease.

What is Crohn's disease? It is an inflammatory bowel disease that affects the digestive tract, particularly the small intestine.

4. Reduce Your Stress to Avoid Disturbing the Microbiome

When you’re ill, your stress levels increase. After all, your body has to work harder to get rid of any threats. The problem is stress can also affect your microbiome. They can impact the way the microorganisms behave and their diversity. Because the immune system and the gut flora are interrelated, issues with the digestive tracts can potentially lower your immunity. You can learn how to restore gut flora by coping with stress effectively. You can:

• Practice meditation.
• Take short walks in nature.
• Perform some low-impact exercises such as yoga.
• Listen to good music.
• Go easy on your workload.

RELATED: How A Healthy Gut Can Reduce Inflammation

5. Get Some Vitamin D to Boost the Immune System

Yellow vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) gelatine capsules and green bottle on clay plate on burlap background. Vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) nutrient beneficial for supporting bone health[/caption] Restoring gut flora is also possible when you increase your vitamin D. Studies show those who have a deficiency of this vitamin are also prone to infection. A study by the University of Edinburgh may explain why.

According to it, the vitamin can modulate or regulate the way the immune system works, going as far as helping control the factors that result in autoimmune diseases. The body can produce this vitamin, but it needs the help of sunlight. Try spending at least 20 minutes outdoors during early midday without wearing sunscreen. On days when there’s not enough sunlight, you can supplement your diet with a vitamin D supplement. Even better, when outside, exercise to further improve your gut.

6. Eat Antioxidants to Prevent the Formation of Free Radicals

Treatments can potentially increase the formation of free radicals. These are uncharged molecules that can damage healthy cells by stealing their electrons. As free radicals increase, you are at risk of developing oxidative stress. It is a condition wherein there’s an imbalance between free radicals and the compounds that can fight them. The good news is you can help your body get rid of free radicals by increasing your intake of antioxidants. Plant-based foods are excellent sources since they use these compounds as a defense against their own threats such as pathogens. To boost your diet, you can add BIOHM Super Greens. You can incorporate them into your smoothies, healthy sweet treats, and soups.

7. Avoid Sugar and Processed Foods to Control Growth of Candida

One of the ways how to heal gut flora is to avoid sugar since yeast tends to feed on them. Yeast thrives on sugar, so reducing your sugar intake will directly reduce your risk of a yeast infection. Without cutting back on sugar, yeast can take over and cause some health problems.

Although, while you are reducing your intake of sugar, you should also not consume too many artificial sweeteners. Artificial sweeteners are popular replacements for sugar. However, there have been studies shown that artificial sweeteners can harm your gut microbiota.

8. Consume Bone Broth to Help Repair the Gut

It’s not uncommon to experience an upset stomach when taking common treatments. It’s because the treatment may contain substances that can irritate the lining of your tummy and the intestines. Depending on how long you’ve been taking them, they can increase the risk of leaky gut or semi-permeability of your intestinal barrier. When this happens, toxins that should not be in your body can penetrate the bloodstream. Restore gut flora by strengthening and repairing your gut walls. You can consume bone broth, which is high in collagen. Collagen is a protein that helps form the structure of your connective tissues, such as those in your gut.

9. Skip Gluten and Dairy to Reduce Food Sensitivities

Since the diversity of your gut flora plays a significant role in metabolism and immunity, you may develop food sensitivities after your treatment plan. After completing your treatment, you may want to avoid the common culprits of food intolerances such as dairy and gluten, which is a protein present in wheat.

For this reason, you may find it beneficial to eat a plant-based diet after. Studies have shown that vegetarian diets can benefit your healthy gut microbiota. This happens because of the high fiber content in many vegetarian foods. By following a vegetarian diet, you can reduce the levels of bacteria that cause diseases, as well as losing weight, reducing inflammation, and cholesterol levels.

While diets that contain animal-based foods promote the growth of different types of bacteria than plant-based diets do. Vegetarian and vegan diets can improve healthy gut microbiota. Although, it is unclear whether the positive effects are a result of a lack of meat.

What Foods to Eat for Your Intestinal Flora

Dr. Bulsiewicz advises that there are many culprits for diminishing the beneficial bacteria and microbes in a healthy gut. One of the biggest is refined sugar and saturated fats. Our modern diet can be linked to causing a healthy gut to become unbalanced. Therefore, a change in diet should be able to help restore the microbes. Based on Dr. Bulsiewicz's advice, here are some tips on what to eat after treatment.

Eat Vegetables

After a course of antibiotics gut flora is essential to get back to optimal health. Your intestinal flora needs to be restored. One of the best foods you can eat is vegetables. Many vegetables contain good beneficial bacteria that help restore balance to your intestinal flora.

Resistant starch is also a good source of beneficial bacteria. This is because resistant starch ferments in the intestines, to restore intestinal flora. Well-fed beneficial bacteria will populate the lining of the gut.

Eat a Range of Good Foods

Generally, the more diverse microbiota you have, the healthier your intestinal flora. Unfortunately, the modern Western diet is very rich in fats and sugar. Eating a balanced diet that consists of whole foods can lead to a balanced intestinal flora. Which is beneficial for your gut health.

Legumes, Beans, and Fruit

The best sources of nutrients for restoring your intestinal flora after antibiotics are fruits and vegetables. Fruits and vegetables are high in fiber which cannot be digested. However, the fiber can be digested by certain bacteria within your healthy gut. This stimulates beneficial bacteria growth. Legumes and beans are also a great source of fiber too. Some great foods are raspberries, artichokes, broccoli, lentils, whole grains, beans, and chickpeas.

Prebiotic Foods

Prebiotic foods promote the growth of beneficial microbes in a healthy gut. To help restore microbes, eating prebiotic foods or supplements is beneficial. Prebiotics to help your microbes can be found in many types of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.

Here are 9 reasons to choose BIOHM Whole Probiotics from BIOHM Health: 

How long does it take for gut flora to restore after common treatments? There’s no definite answer for this as every person’s reaction can be different. Following these tips on how to restore gut flora for the same duration as your intake may help lessen the impact.

How do you keep your gut healthy? Let's talk in the comments below! Up Next:

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