GUT HEALTH
A healthy, well-functioning, happy gut is key to your overall health.
Good gut health helps you sleep better, improves your mood, improves your immunity, balances your hormones and can help reduce the risk of developing conditions like diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, and arthritis.
Your gut health can become unbalanced for all sorts of reasons, including stress, infections, medications, lack of sleep and toxins in our everyday environment, which can severely impact your health.
Rebalancing and improving your gut health is at the very core of my practice, and by specialising in issues such as IBS, reflux and SIBO, I can support you to overcome dysbiosis by regulating your gut biome and supporting the processes in your digestive tract. This might involve dietary approaches or functional laboratory testing where needed.
If appropriate, I offer testing to establish the underlying cause of your gut issues and then develop a personalised nutrition plan to help alter the balance of your gut biome and promote the growth of more good bacteria and, in turn, better health overall.
Here’s a little bit more on how I can help with specific gut conditions and how you can get in touch to explore working with me.
ibs
IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) is a shockingly common but hugely distressing condition that far too many people are living with today. In fact, IBS is known to affect up to 20% of the UK population (that’s 1 in 5 of us!).
The stomach cramps, diarrhoea and constipation that come with IBS can be debilitating, and working out what is triggering your symptoms can be hard. Through careful assessment of your symptoms, and testing if necessary, I will support you to make changes to reestablish a healthy gut biome and ultimately to relieve your symptoms and improve your digestive health and overall wellbeing.
Please get in touch if you’d like help assessing and treating your IBS symptoms.
sibo
If you’ve been diagnosed with IBS, there’s a strong likelihood that you’ll be suffering from SIBO or small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, as it is a leading underlying cause of Irritable Bowel Syndrome.
Having trained with the SIBO Doctor, founded by Dr. Nirala Jacobi, BHSc, ND (USA), I understand the complexities of SIBO and how difficult it can be to overcome. I have personal experience in this field, having suffered myself with SIBO and managed to reclaim my health back.
Normally, bacteria are found in the trillions in the LARGE INTESTINE, where they perform various symbiotic functions for the human body. However, if SIBO is present, bacterial overgrowth and fermentation occur in the digestive and absorptive area of the body, the SMALL INTESTINE.
SIBO can be defined as the presence of an increased number and/or abnormal type of bacteria in the small bowel.
It leads to gastrointestinal symptoms such as bloating, cramping, reflux, flatulence, belching, constipation, diarrhoea and nausea.
It can reduce your ability to digest and absorb the nutrients in your food. Vitamins and minerals such as B12, zinc and iron can be found to be low in people with SIBO. I often hear people say that they are or have been anaemic, but they aren’t sure why.
Please get in touch to find out how to work with me to test for, and treat SIBO.
FODMAPS
More often than not, my clients who present with SIBO or IBS symptoms see their condition improve immeasurably by following a FODMAPs programme.
FODMAPs are fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides and polyols, or in plain English, a group of poorly absorbed and digested sugars that can trigger or exacerbate IBS symptoms.
However, whilst in both my experience and in the research which suggests that a FODMAP diet may be an effective nutritional strategy for those with IBS it is worth pointing out that the diet is quite restrictive and not one suitable for everyone or that I suggest following long term.
For more information on digestive health and whether nutritional therapy may be of benefit, please get in touch.
