Your digestive system may be making you fat. It’s hard to believe – but very true!
New research is being published every day that blames the bugs in your digestive system and the way they upset your gut’s immune system on those extra pounds.
The authors of some of these studies explain that damage to the gut can lead to a leaky gut, allowing food particles to be exposed to the gut’s immune system. This then triggers a system-wide immune response, leading to inflammation all over the body and producing obesity by increasing insulin resistance.
We already know that inflammation from any cause — bacteria, food, a high-sugar, high-fat diet — will produce insulin resistance, leading to higher insulin levels. And since insulin is a fat storage hormone, you store more fat — mostly around the belly.
In addition, high-fat diets, (the wrong kinds of fats), change the bacterial flora in the gut. Toxin-producing bugs are promoted by the high-fat diet while anti-inflammatory and protective bugs die off.
(And there are over 500 species of bugs in your gut all fighting for territory.)
Our SAD Diet
In fact, our highly processed diet completely alters the bacterial ecosystem in the gut, leading to breakdown and inflammation. Plus, many drugs like antibiotics, steroids, anti-inflammatory meds, acid-blockers, and hormones all contribute to your leaky gut.
Our Standard American Diet, (SAD), produces more of a bacterial toxin which then leaks into the body. In fact, when you eat a bad diet, bad bugs flourish. Your whole gut ecosystem is upset and the outside world “leaks” in across a damaged gut lining. The result is not just obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, but also allergic, autoimmune, and inflammatory diseases.
The bugs in your gut control your fat storage and the calories you absorb. So people with healthy bugs in the gut lose weight, and those with bad bugs gain weight.
However, by adding soluble fiber to the diet, taking a medical grade probiotic and eating whole grains and lots of vegetables, we can increase the population of the good bugs like Bifidobacteria and decrease the bad bugs – leading to weight loss.
Remember, if you want to get rid of your belly, you have to fix your belly!
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