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What I’ve learnt recently about the importance of gut health

And why it is key to both physical and mental wellbeing
Leanne Spencer

Leanne Spencer

3 Min Read

Digestion is a fascinating topic, and there is a lot of science around this now. It’s probably the greatest area of exploration in terms of health.

Functional medicine practice is now targeting the gut as its first line of investigation, as well as the local site, wherever that might be. In other words, they’re addressing gut health, as well as looking at the cause of your skin condition, for example, or your foot infection, whatever it might be. 

One of the things that I’ve discovered around digestion is that health originates in the gut. You can treat the gut as a first line of defence, but also from a preventative aspect. I drink goat milk kefir and I just had an intense course of probiotics and lactobacillus, because I’d had a gut test that showed I was deficient. I’m exploring from a personal level how I can improve my health through the gut, but also on behalf of our clients. Health originating in the gut is a recent discovery for me.

We’re more microbial than human, is another interesting area. There’s around 100 trillion bacterial cells in the human body, coming from about 4000 species. About a trillion of those are in our colon, and if you were to weigh up all the bacterial cells in the body, it would be three to four pounds, roughly the weight of a human brain; that’s quite astonishing.

The other interesting thing is most of our immune cells sit in the gut, therefore to prevent and cure illness, attacking the gut as a first line of defence makes a lot of sense.

I also recently learnt the difference between pre- and probiotics. Prebiotics feed the bacteria that’s already there. Probiotics introduce new bacteria. It’s healthy for our guts to have a variety, a good diversity of bacteria.

Another important point is that targeting inflammation and bloating through the gut is paramount.  Inflammation is a situation we absolutely want to avoid in the body at all costs. It can link to mental health conditions, because it’s a very negative situation for our body to be in; certainly, on a prolonged and sustained basis.

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Leanne Spencer is an entrepreneur, coach, TEDx Speaker, author of Remove the Guesswork, and founder of Bodyshot Performance Limited. Bodyshot is a health and fitness consultancy that helps busy professionals get more energy by removing the guesswork around their health, fitness and nutrition. Visit www.bodyshotperformance.com or email [email protected] to register your interest in our services and connect with us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Author(s)

  • Leanne Spencer

    Leanne is an award-winning entrepreneur and the founder of Bodyshot Performance Limited. She delivered a TEDx talk on 'Why fitness is more important than weight', is the author of bestselling books 'Remove the Guesswork' and 'Rise and Shine', and hosts a podcast called ’Remove the Guesswork‘. Leanne is the founder of Bodyshot Performance, an award-winning health and wellbeing company. Bodyshot Performance work with businesses of up to 500 people who want to create a culture of energy, vitality and performance through the business and position wellbeing as a competitive advantage. Bodyshot intersect the latest science and technology to provide unique solutions to the challenge of wellbeing in the workplace that have a direct impact on the bottom line. Our clients have won awards for wellbeing and recognise it directly improves employee engagement and retention and attracts talent into the business.  We also work with chronically stressed or burned out professionals to get you back in control of your health and able to do the things you want to do in life. My expertise is around health, fitness and wellbeing, specifically focusing on sleep, mental health, energy, body composition, digestion and fitness. I host a popular podcast on iTunes called ’Remove the Guesswork ‘, and in November 2016 I delivered a TEDx talk on 'Why fitness is more important than weight'. I’m the author of the bestselling books 'Remove the Guesswork' and 'Rise and Shine' and I regularly speak to corporates on health and wellbeing. My personal values are to live truthfully, considerately and to "suck all the marrow out of life" as Thoreau said. I support the charity Diversity Role Models which works to combat homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying. I recently completed the world’s toughest ski race to raise £10,125 for Alzheimer's Research as my father-in-law was profoundly ill with Alzheimers, and I am on a constant mission to find ways to live in a way that is sustainable and environmentally friendly. I love sport, fitness, reading, gardening, business, podcasting, and being with my cat and our scampish little rescue dog, Kami from Romania.