What is your gut telling you? Apparently a lot, according to the Aliso Viejo Chamber of Commerce guest speaker Dr. Trinh. The Chief Medical Officer of Irvine Clinical Research and best-selling author spoke at the Chamber’s “After Hours” event via Zoom about the connection our gut has on our overall health.
While this seems like a pretty complex topic, Dr. Trinh explained things simply. There are billions of beneficial bacteria inside all of us. That bacteria makes up our gut’s microbiome, which is a community of microorganisms living inside our bodies.
According to Dr. Trinh, 70% of our immune system is located in our gut. This allows all the good bacteria in our microbiome to fight off the bad bacteria we encounter each day. But that’s not all, the bacteria also helps digest our food, break down toxins, and makes a number of important vitamins, enzymes and neurotransmitters that are crucial to our overall health.
With such an important role in our body, it seems only logical that we would take care of our gut’s microbiome, but many of us are actually harming it each day. One of the biggest culprits? Our diet. Eating food filled with sugar, preservatives and pesticides produces bad bacteria and creates an imbalance that weakens our system — essentially letting the “bad guys” inside. This signals our immune system to attack, which in turn causes inflammation in the body.
According to Dr. Trinh, chronic inflammation leads to chronic diseases like COPD, Asthma, and Heart Disease – just to name a few. And perhaps even more interesting, data shows the health of our gut can be linked to our overall brain health, including diseases like Alzheimer’s.
Dr. Trinh also spoke about new research that’s exploring the connection of coronavirus and the recovery rates of people who eat certain types of foods. “Coronavirus doesn’t kill you, it’s your immune system that kills you by trying to fight off the virus,” said Dr. Trinh.
So, what is our gut really telling us?
Are you interested in hearing more about topics that affect the people in our community? Join us for our next “After Hours” event on August 26th at 6 pm.
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