Antibiotics are medications that your doctor prescribes when you get sick. Common bacterial infections, including those of the eyes, respiratory tract, urinary tract, and skin, respond well to a cycle of prescription antibiotics. However, with so many foods that damage the healthy balance of “good” and “bad” bacteria in the gut, it can be especially difficult to fully restore gut health after taking a round of antibiotics.
How Do Antibiotics Harm My Gut?
Antibiotics work to kill off the harmful micro-bacteria that caused your illness, and also end up killing the microbiota in your digestive system, both “good” and “bad” bacteria strains. Because of this, you may suffer from a variety of health problems, because you need all of those little buggers living in your gut for proper digestion, immunity, skin health, and even sleep.
When you get sick with a bacterial infection, your doctor may prescribe any number of medications. However, they will all fall into one of these types of antibiotics: Aminoglycoside, Cephalosporin, Macrolide, Penicillin, Quinolone, Sulfonamide, and Tetracycline, as well as other specific types for rare infections.
No matter which antibiotic you are prescribed, you will need to follow these five steps to restore gut health after taking antibiotics:
1. Make Soup
Your mother probably already knows to make chicken soup for you if you get sick. But you should do it for yourself, too. Chicken soup (when made with real chicken bones) creates a broth loaded with nutrients, including essential minerals and amino acids – specifically, a unique protein known as glutamine. This amino acid has been shown in clinical studies to support gastrointestinal function by promoting a strong epithelial barrier in the intestines, reducing damage caused by a round of antibiotics.1
2. Eat Fermented Foods
When you take antibiotics to kill off pathogenic bacteria, you must know that all of the friendly, helpful microbacteria living in your gut also dies off. So get more “good” gut bugs back into your belly by eating fermented foods, including yogurt, kombucha, kefir, sauerkraut, pickles, miso, tempeh, natto, and kimchi (to name a few). All of these foods provide active bacterial cultures to help restore the vital probiotics needed in your digestive system.
3. Chill Out
You may not realize how much your good mood can affect your stress levels and your health – but it does. Researchers have found that stress promotes the growth of “bad” strains of bacteria, decreasing the diversity of microbacteria in your digestive system.2
In fact, studies have shown that people who had high levels of stress with depressive symptoms were almost 50 percent more likely to suffer an early death than those with lower stress levels and a better mood.3 So go ahead: just chill. Reducing your stress levels helps to increase the strength of barrier function in your gut lining.
Try this simple breathing exercise the next time you feel stressed:
· Sit comfortably facing forward, with your shoulders relaxed.
· Place your left index finger over your left nostril, and inhale deeply through your right nostril. Inhale for five seconds, filling your belly with breath.
· Remove your finger and exhale for 10 seconds through the mouth.
· Place your right index finger over your right nostril, and inhale deeply through your left nostril. Inhale for five seconds, filling your belly with breath.
· Remove your finger and exhale for 10 seconds through the mouth.
· Repeat this breathing exercise for five minutes to instantly slash your stress levels, anytime and anywhere.
4. Fill Up on Fiber
The “good” probiotic bacteria in your digestive system need to eat too, so provide fiber whenever possible. Fiber is a nutrient found in many natural foods, including apple, artichoke, asparagus, banana, garlic, onion, leek, and dandelion greens. So, don’t forget to fill up on these fibrous foods to keep the populations of “good” gut bugs high after taking antibiotics.4
5. Try a Supplement
After taking a full round of antibiotics, you may feel that you can’t restore your good gut health fast enough. Never fear! Perfect Biotics® is a comprehensive probiotic supplement designed with 300 billion living, colony-forming units of friendly gut bacteria, and over 15 different probiotic strains. Able to survive in the acidic environment of your digestive system, Perfect Biotics® is the only probiotic supplement on the market scientifically formulated with the ideal 80/20 balance of “good” vs “bad” bacteria to restore your gut to good health after antibiotics.
Gut Health Restored!
If you get a bacterial infection, the microscopic bugs that make you sick will usually die off after taking antibiotics prescribed by your doctor. However, the tiny gut bugs living in your digestive system may also die off. Replenish the balance of your gut microbiome (microscopic bacteria) with these five tips for restoring gut health after antibiotics.
Dr. Cary Nelson
Sources:
1. Hering NA, Schulzke JD. Therapeutic options to modulate barrier defects in inflammatory bowel disease. Dig Dis. 2009;27(4):450-4.
2. Lyte M, Vulchanova L. Stress at the intestinal surface: catecholamines and mucosa-bacteria interactions. Cell Tissue Res. 2011 Jan;343(1):23-32.
3. Carmela Alcántara, Paul Muntner. Perfect Storm Concurrent Stress and Depressive Symptoms Increase Risk of Myocardial Infarction or Death. Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality. March 10, 2015
4. Jill A. Parnell, Raylene A. Reimer. Gut Microbes. Nov 13.
1 thought on “5 Simple Ways to Restore Gut Health After Antibiotics”
Comments are closed.