GUT REACTION

Want to live a healthier, happier life? Experts think the bacteria in your belly could be the secret to living well.

- EVA-MARIA BOBBERT

If gut health was a religion, it’s fair to say I grew up among devout believers. Homemade sourdough, sauerkraut and – the sourest of them all – the giant gelatinous kombucha pellicle bubbling away on the kitchen shelf were my toast and tea growing up. A saintly diet was not my priority when I flew the nest but the frivolity was disappointingly short-lived. Within a year my energy plummeted to alarmingly lethargic, and painful eczema cracked the skin on my hands with such ferocity that I couldn’t hold a pen to take lecture notes. I was eventually declared intolerant to pretty much everything bar breathing but, despite doggedly sticking to a holier-than-thou elimination diet, there was no real improvement. I was, in a very literal sense, a misery guts.

“Even a small change in our microbiome can have a snowball effect,” explains Professor Phil Hansbro, author of The Good Gut Anti-Inflammatory Diet, and Director at the Centenary UTS Centre for Inflammation. “Inflammation and damage to the gut creates an opportunity for more ‘bad’ bacteria to grow. These bad bacteria species take more and more space, resulting in a loss of immune tolerance and chronic inflammation.”

Although processed and sugary foods are linked to feeding inflammatory-producing bacteria in your gut, the damage they do is very individual because it depends on what other microbes you have that could tip the balance in your favour.