YOGA + Life® Magazines
  • Partner With Us
  • Subscribe
  • Education + Trainings
  • Retreat Directory
  • “The Practice”
  • HOME
  • FEATURED
    • Community + Culture
    • Wellness + Nutrition
    • Products
    • Profiles
    • Yoga + Fitness
    • Events
  • ALL CONTENT
    • Community + Culture
      • Art
      • Books
      • Community
      • Culture
      • Family
      • Fashion
      • Food + Drink
      • Nourish Me
      • Motivation
      • Music
      • Outdoors
      • Travel
    • Wellness + Nutrition
      • Self-Care
      • Nutrition
      • Psychology
      • Recipes
      • Therapy
      • Weight Loss
    • Products
      • Product Spotlights
      • Roundups
      • Try It On – Reviews
      • Try It Out – Reviews
    • Profiles
      • Business
      • Partner Profiles
      • People
      • Spotlight Cities
      • Students
      • Studios
      • Teachers
      • Seva Story
      • Sustainability Story
      • Storytelling
    • Yoga + Fitness
      • Asana
      • In the Practice
      • Meditation
      • Philosophy
      • Physiology
      • Sports
      • Workouts
    • Events
      • Festivals
      • Retreats
      • Training Spotlights
    • Inspiration From Y+L Partners
  • Y + L COMMUNITIES
    • COLORADO
    • MINNESOTA
    • NEW YORK
  • CONNECT
    • Order A Magazine
    • Advertise With Us
    • Contribute
    • Contact Us
  • LIVE CLASSES
Featured Posts
  • Mother’s Day 2021 Gift Guide
    • 53 views
  • Try It On : Machines For Freedom x Dioscvri Mystic Felines Collection | By Lauren Farrauto
    • 14 views
  • Q+A with Ali Duncan of Urban Sanctuary : Resilience in the Wake of America’s Violence
    • 64 views
  • Partner With Us
  • Subscribe
  • Education + Trainings
  • Retreat Directory
  • “The Practice”
0 Followers
2K Likes
Partners
YOGA + Life® Magazines
Subscribe
  • HOME
  • FEATURED
    • Community + Culture
    • Wellness + Nutrition
    • Products
    • Profiles
    • Yoga + Fitness
    • Events
  • ALL CONTENT
    • Community + Culture
      • Art
      • Books
      • Community
      • Culture
      • Family
      • Fashion
      • Food + Drink
      • Nourish Me
      • Motivation
      • Music
      • Outdoors
      • Travel
    • Wellness + Nutrition
      • Self-Care
      • Nutrition
      • Psychology
      • Recipes
      • Therapy
      • Weight Loss
    • Products
      • Product Spotlights
      • Roundups
      • Try It On – Reviews
      • Try It Out – Reviews
    • Profiles
      • Business
      • Partner Profiles
      • People
      • Spotlight Cities
      • Students
      • Studios
      • Teachers
      • Seva Story
      • Sustainability Story
      • Storytelling
    • Yoga + Fitness
      • Asana
      • In the Practice
      • Meditation
      • Philosophy
      • Physiology
      • Sports
      • Workouts
    • Events
      • Festivals
      • Retreats
      • Training Spotlights
    • Inspiration From Y+L Partners
  • Y + L COMMUNITIES
    • COLORADO
    • MINNESOTA
    • NEW YORK
  • CONNECT
    • Order A Magazine
    • Advertise With Us
    • Contribute
    • Contact Us
  • LIVE CLASSES
  • CO YOGA + Life
  • Nutrition
  • Wellness
  • Wellness + Nutrition

Listen To Your Gut + Treat Your Microbiome Like a Temple | By Dr. Jonathan Bloch

  • Lexi Reich | Managing Editor
  • 109 views
  • 5 minute read
Total
2
Shares
2
0
0

Originally published in the Summer + Fall 2018 issue. 

Your body is an ecosystem to itself, host to trillions of microorganisms residing within the environmental niche of your human self. Several hundred different species of bacteria, fungi, yeast, viruses and other cellular organisms live in your gastrointestinal tract, mouth, vagina and skin. They are collectively referred to as your microbiome and you plus them compose a single ecological unit that has co-evolved synergistically since the beginning of time.

The cells of your microbiome outnumber your own cells ten to one and account for a 100 times greater fold in gene expression than what your human genome is capable of. While DNA is 99.9 percent similar between every person, our microbiomes are incredibly diverse and scientists are correlating specific microbiome patterns with certain disease states and behaviors, and is accounting for more than what genetics alone can predict.

A thriving microbiome serves vital immunologic, anti-inflammatory, metabolic and homeostatic functions. It helps us digest food, produce vitamins, educate our immune system, pull nutrients in, push toxins out, protect from disease, fight off harmful microorganisms, and even regulate mood.

Studies have linked changes in the microbiome to obesity, heart disease, arthritis, IBS, allergies, diminished response to cancer immunotherapies, and neurological disorders like Parkinson’s, pain sensitivity, eating behaviors, stress responses, emotional dysregulation, and even social interacting. We are thus on the verge of a new health revolution that’s asking “If we damage our microbiome, what other health problems are we causing?”

Support Your Gut Health

The process of building your microbiome starts immediately after birth. We’re born sterile inside. Passage through the birth canal introduces both gut and skin microorganisms from your mother. Breast milk introduces more bacteria from all over the body. Food from dirt takes over and the microbiome fully matures by age three. It’s a process of symbiotic co-evolution where our microbiomes are as much a part of our human landscape as the person themselves.

When things go wrong with the microbiome, from stress or diet, it becomes depleted, thinned and overrun by pathogens. This eliminates the protective effect and the gut lining becomes exposed. Direct effects of inflammation cause the gut to erode (leading to poor nutrient absorption and food sensitivities) and even fall apart (leading to leaky gut and direct input of toxins to the bloodstream).

So what’s the number one way to treat your body and microbiome like a shrine? Remove toxins and pathogens from your body while focusing on what goes in through diet. Agricultural and pharmacologic antibiotics kill off the microbiome, so do food pesticides. GMOs, food irradiation, microwaving, overcooking and over-utilized sterilization processes deplete the microbiome before food even hits the plate. Replacing good ingredients with refined sugars, processed flours, fillers, etc., serves to support yeast and parasite growth that competes with and replaces the microbiome. Finally, modern world stress weakens and inflames our microbiome, which in turn sends out the immune-mediated biological markers that augment self-fulfilling cycles that spiral us towards autoimmune disorders, chronic fatigue and pain.

Remove toxins and pathogens from your body while focusing on what goes in through diet.

  • Recommendations suggest getting the most probiotic diversity from diet by eating probiotic foods ranging from kombucha to sauerkraut and yogurt.
  • Prebiotic diets utilize natural forms of fiber that increase GI motility and bacterial turnover, which encourages low populations to flourish. Inulin and oligoscaharides make the best prebiotic fibers and are found in foods like onions, garlic, asparagus, green bananas and whole grains.
  • Fruits and Vegetables are a top probiotic and prebiotic foods. Modern diets lack sufficient fiber. Fiber not only feeds the microbiome, it aids stool transit times. Digestion is a time-sensitive process by which we want to absorb the good before things begin to putrefy.
  • Removing toxins from your diet and body is tough no matter how carefully you choose food. According to David Sandoval, pesticides are found in more than 75 percent of the food we eat and every American tested has been shown to have it in their bodies. Chelation is a difficult process by which we use substances to bind and remove toxins/metals from our body. Chlorella is a normal microbiome organism that produces glutahione, the major natural chelator in humans. Other products like Biome Medic® are being marketed as pesticide chelators.
  • Avoid antacids in leu of having natural stomach acidity that kills harmful bacteria.
  • Chew food well. Saliva has many semi-dormant probiotic bacteria that get mixed into and
    activated with food, and can literally make a scoby out of each meal.
  • Processed sugars and corn syrup inflame your cells and serve as superfood for yeast and candida mold species that take over and replace the normal microbiome. Yeast is not probiotic. It produces large amounts of gases CO2 and ethanol which further irritate and compete for your body’s use of oxygen.
  • Meat protein is hard to digest, which not only slows transit time, its byproducts of metabolism (ammonia, sulfites, methane and ethanol) could be comparable to the main ingredients in household cleaners, explosives, and gasoline.

Once our food was as pure as the earth, water ran clean and dirt was full of minerals. We lived by our gut instincts. We woke by the sun, slept by the stars, and a real circadian rhythm versus go-go modern day challenges. We did not eat coloring, flavoring, added sugar, binding agents, fillers, hormones, antibiotics, pesticides, radiated ingredients and GMOs.

The microbiome is not well understood yet is receiving a lot of recent attention, this may be because our modern world has made it almost impossible to care for it. Evolutionarily, microbial symbiosis of the intestinal tract started in the ocean when we were primitive wormlike ingestive tubes, and we have since evolved into a complex single ecological unit. We know the microbiome has widespread physiologic roles that are positive for us, that we use the same chemical messengers, share DNA, low numbers correlate with different disease conditions, and while it cannot speak, it has mastered unique ways of signaling the entire body. All together it raises a very esoteric question of whom exists for who. It’s like the alien invasion never left, they still reside inside and are desperately trying to tell us something about both our environments … so what is your gut telling you?

Photo courtesy of Dr. Jonathan Bloch.

Dr. Jonathan Bloch is a full spectrum integrated family practitioner and osteopathic physician with a mission is to inspire personal health through mind, body and spiritual practices. You can learn more about him and his practice at www.yogischoicehealthcare.com.
Total
2
Shares
Share 2
Tweet 0
Pin it 0
Lexi Reich | Managing Editor
Lexi Reich | Managing Editor

After experiencing a yoga ashram nestled in the mountains of Colorado, Lexi became enthralled in the practice of yoga and meditation, and earned her yoga teacher training at the sacred space. Originally from Chicago, Lexi loves the holistic lifestyle she found in Colorado, and combining this passion with her writing is what makes her truly happy. Outside of her role as Managing Editor at Jaunt Media Collective, the publishing company behind YOGA + Life® and Spoke+Blossom, Lexi spends most of her time freelance writing and leading yoga classes. Besides this, you can find her hiking or daydreaming about traveling. Learn more at lexireich.com

Previous Article
  • CO YOGA + Life
  • Meditation
  • Products
  • Try It On

Try It On : The Lotus Wrap | By Lexi Reich

  • Lexi Reich | Managing Editor
View Post
Next Article
  • CO YOGA + Life
  • Studios
  • Yoga + Fitness

Loveland Community Yoga | By Ange Stopperan

  • Lexi Reich | Managing Editor
View Post
More from Y+L
  • Tips on Success : Falling Upwards with Nina Williams | By Olivia Lyda

    • CO YOGA + Life®
    View Post
  • Play + Connect at Everland : Sedalia, Colorado | By Lexi Reich

    • Lexi Reich | Managing Editor
    View Post
  • RiverWonderGrass

    Rafting, Camping + Live Music : The 2021 RiverWonderGrass Expedition Lineup is Here

    • CO YOGA + Life®
    View Post
  • Hanuman Academy Launches Tantra Yoga Psychology Course : September 20 – October 31, 2020

    • YOGA + Life® Magazines
    View Post
  • Meet Two Featured Artists from CRUSH Walls Art Festival in Denver : September 14-20, 2020 | By Brooke Welsh

    • CO YOGA + Life®
    View Post
  • Eat, Drink and Learn During the Flatirons Food Film Festival Fundraiser this August

    • Bobby L'Heureux | Director or Partnerships, Y+L
    View Post
  • Keeping the Yoga Retreat Alive During a Pandemic | By Lisa Blake

    • Bobby L'Heureux | Director or Partnerships, Y+L
    View Post
  • Summer + Fall Adventure with RiverWonderGrass | By Brooke Welsh

    • Bobby L'Heureux | Director or Partnerships, Y+L
    View Post
  • Yoga & Collective Resilience : Hanuman Community Offers Online Event | By Wendy Wilkinson

    • CO YOGA + Life®
    View Post
  • Wellness Retreats – Can I Still Do This? | By Juli Rathke

    • Juli Rathke | Founder, YOGA + Life®
    View Post
Archived Posts!
  • Nourish Me : Sweetgreen | By Lexi Reich
    • 95
  • At This Point in My Life : Rock Your Bliss Grand Lake Retreat | By Karstee Davis
    • 118
  • Women’s Wellness and Adventure Retreats | By Wendy Wilkinson
    • 181
  • One Book One Valley : Uniting Readers, Books + Ideas
    • 109
  • California Love: Carmel-by-the-Sea | By Kim Fuller
    • 144
Instagram
From home and bath products to outdoor apparel, we’ve curated a gift guide with all mother-figures in mind. Whether you’re spending Mother’s Day together or apart this year, these gifts are sure to shower her with love.
The women’s cycling brand @machinesforfreedom has partnered with the California-based art studio @dioscvri to present the Mystic Felines Collection. The collection is a nod to strong women — cis, trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming folks — who forge their own path.
Ali Duncan, intuitive healer and founder of Denver yoga studio @urbansanctuarydenver, believes action is what the nation needs. As a former police officer turned yogi, she knows firsthand the power of resiliency and its ability to manage trauma.
Revamping your space for a yoga practice, when everything else in life is at home, can be tough. But yoga teachers @rachelglowacki and @isabelle_casey, along with @yogamere founder @amyormond, all have the tips, tricks and mindset shifts for elevating your space to reflect a divine practice.
Many of us are working from home during the pandemic — and it has its pros and cons. To keep the body happy and pain free, try out some everyday yoga stretches to undo your home office posture.
The Practice with @yogalifemag is now available on-demand! Rent classes + practice on your time from wherever you may be.🤸‍♀️Link in the @yogalifemag bio!✨
We are honored to be partnering with @yuvayogauk 🧘‍♀️
Meet @rachelglowacki — our newest teacher on The Practice!
Facebook
Facebook
Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
From home and bath products to outdoor apparel, we’ve curated a gift guide with all mother-figures in mind. Whether you’re spending Mother’s Day together or apart this year, these gifts are sure to shower her with love.
The women’s cycling brand @machinesforfreedom has partnered with the California-based art studio @dioscvri to present the Mystic Felines Collection. The collection is a nod to strong women — cis, trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming folks — who forge their own path.
Ali Duncan, intuitive healer and founder of Denver yoga studio @urbansanctuarydenver, believes action is what the nation needs. As a former police officer turned yogi, she knows firsthand the power of resiliency and its ability to manage trauma.
Revamping your space for a yoga practice, when everything else in life is at home, can be tough. But yoga teachers @rachelglowacki and @isabelle_casey, along with @yogamere founder @amyormond, all have the tips, tricks and mindset shifts for elevating your space to reflect a divine practice.
Many of us are working from home during the pandemic — and it has its pros and cons. To keep the body happy and pain free, try out some everyday yoga stretches to undo your home office posture.
The Practice with @yogalifemag is now available on-demand! Rent classes + practice on your time from wherever you may be.🤸‍♀️Link in the @yogalifemag bio!✨

Join the YOGA + Life® Newsletter!

Events, Product Reviews, Promotions and More!

about
YOGA + Life® - an online community and magazine.
Recent Articles
  • Mother’s Day 2021 Gift Guide
    • YOGA + Life® Magazines
  • Try It On : Machines For Freedom x Dioscvri Mystic Felines Collection | By Lauren Farrauto
    • Lauren Farrauto | Assistant Editor
  • Q+A with Ali Duncan of Urban Sanctuary : Resilience in the Wake of America’s Violence
    • YOGA + Life® Magazines
  • “Yoga and Veganism” : Unpacking the Practice of Compassion For All Beings | By Lexi Reich
    • Lexi Reich | Managing Editor
  • Editors
  • Online Columnists
  • Contribute
  • Advertise
  • Contact Us
YOGA + Life® - All Rights Reserved

Input your search keywords and press Enter.