Oh, you thought I was done talking about gut health?! NEVER! There is an aspect of gut health that I didn’t discuss much in the videos: fasting. Fasting simply means going without food for a certain amount of time per day. When you sleep, you fast—unless you get up in the middle of the night to rummage through the refrigerator for a snack. As we’re about to launch our Balance Health Weight Management Program, you will be hearing more about how fasting can improve insulin sensitivity, mental clarity, mood improvements, autophagy, etc. For this post, I want to briefly tout the benefits of fasting on the gut microbiome.
As you may have noticed from the videos on gut health, small intestine bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) is one of the toughest gut conditions to beat. The unhealthy bacteria that make their way into the small intestine love to eat sugar and drive you to eat even more! These bacteria also control your ability to feel hungry or full depending on how they’re fed because they communicate with your brain to produce peptides, PYY and GLP-1, and hormones, leptin and ghrelin.
When you fast for 24+ hours, you aren’t feeding those unhealthy bacteria any food that would allow them to continue to grow. The gut re-establishes a balance of microbes to keep you healthy. Your body produces stem cells that can be released into the gut which can repair the mucosal barrier that covers the intestinal lining. If your gut heals, then you will produce neurotransmitters that make you feel happy, and hormones are created and metabolized that will help you keep your blood sugars under better control and hunger in check. Furthermore, when those leaky junctions are healed in the intestinal wall, you have less systemic inflammation and can prevent or improve chronic health conditions. Why wouldn’t you consider fasting to improve all these aspects of your health?
When breaking a 24+ hour fast with the intention of gut repair, the foods you choose to eat when refeeding begins will either continue the healing or stop it. The growth of the beneficial bacteria will flourish if you break your fast with foods rich in prebiotics, polyphenols, and probiotics. If you happen to break your fast with a fast-food cheeseburger, you didn’t undo the previous 24 hours, but you also stopped any further healing.
A 24-hour+ fast generally cannot be handled by the novice and I would recommend starting out slowing with intermittent fasting. There are many benefits to be had with intermittent fasting as well and there will be more to come about this lifestyle in weeks to come. If you want to tackle a longer fast, come talk to us at Balance Health so we can make sure you are set up for success and can do it in a safe manner (those on certain medications for hypertension, diabetes, etc. will want to take special precautions with longer fasts). We are open to new patients and would love to welcome you to our Balance Health family.
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