Probiotics & their role with Coeliac Disease
So, you may have been diagnosed with Coeliac Disease. You have been told by your doctor, specialist or dietician that you must follow a strict Gluten Free diet. You may be starting this transition or you may have been diagnosed a long time & been following a strict gluten free diet for a few months or years. However going gluten free is only part of the story as I explain below.
Being diagnosed with Coeliac Disease can be incredibly daunting. In reality it means a complete overhaul of your diet. Gluten appears in so many foods as an added ingredient that it can take quite a lot of adjustment to ensure your diet is totally gluten free. However we are generally told by the medical world that, as long as we eliminate gluten including being careful with cross contamination, then our gut will heal. It’s not a cure as we will always have the disease, but we should find our symptoms reduce or disappear.
However this isn’t the whole story, as I found out. Now, you may have been one of the people who found that their diet improved and became a lot healthier once you converted to gluten free. Or you may have been on the other end of the spectrum, like myself, and found yourself devouring anything that had ‘gluten free’ on the packet. In my case I went from a relatively healthy diet to consuming bread, cakes, cookies, desserts, crackers and anything saying those 2 magical words. This, I realised, was a psychological problem as I was feeling very restricted in my diet and compensated by eating from the ‘free from’ aisles. And of course I was supporting the gluten free food sector, all on my own, as I didn’t want anyone to go out of business!
For me some of my symptoms cleared up incredibly quickly once I changed my diet to gluten free. The upset stomach I had been suffering from every day for 7 or 8 months had cleared up within a week, but in reality that was about it.
I was still incredibly fatigued, although this did improve over the course of the first year, and the weight I had lost before diagnosis was stubbornly staying off. I also ended up 5 months into being gluten free getting an upset stomach again which got increasingly worse and lasted about 10 weeks. My doctor & consultant were not concerned and believed I just had an intolerance to something.
It took about 20 months before the weight started to creep back on again which I was really grateful for as I believed my gut had healed. However a trip to the doctor’s shattered that illusion when a blood test showed I had a borderline under active thyroid. This disturbed me greatly as when I was first diagnosed with Coeliac Disease I had different tests which showed my bone density was fine, my colon was fine and other various tests came back negative. This had put me into a false sense of security as I believed that by going gluten free I would now be ok and had averted any other health issues.
So where do Probiotics come into all of this? Well firstly, going gluten free will help to reduce the inflammation that is happening in your gut as your anti bodies will no longer be attacking the lining of your gut and flattening the villi (see MY OTHER BLOG). However inflammation isn’t just restricted to people with Coeliac Disease. Anyone can suffer from inflammation which is a defence response to damaged tissues and if prolonged is associated with many diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Diabetes, Heart disease, Cancer etc.
One of many things that are required for a healthy gut and an anti inflammatory state is probiotics. Probiotics are the ‘good’ bacteria that your intestines need to work efficiently and for optimum immune function, as 70% of the immune system is in the intestinal tract. If there is an imbalance of probiotics in the intestine then this can cause digestive issues and inflammatory issues, as the immune system will be compromised.
So what is the best way to increase the probiotics in your gut? There are a plethora of supplements on the market that will claim to have a few billion probiotics in each capsule to help support your gut health. However the issue with synthetic probiotics is that there may be a few billion in the bottle but they are generally the same strain or only a few. This can be detrimental as there is the danger they will create a monoculture in your gut where there would be naturally be tens of thousands of strains of ‘good’ bacteria.
One of the most natural ways to increase your good gut flora is through the foods you eat. Fermented foods are a great way of introducing and increasing probiotics in your intestinal tract. Also they are usually naturally gluten free. Try introducing Kefir, Tempe, Sauerkraut, Natural Yoghurt, Miso and Kimchi to your diet.
Another amazing but simple way to increase your good gut flora is to go outside in nature! Go out into the local woods, countryside where ever you can and breathe in the air. Nature will reward you by flooding your airways with microbes that will then diversify the whole intestinal tract.
So the moral of the story? A healthy gut means a healthy immune system and a reduction in inflammation which causes a lot of diseases. Having healthy gut flora is one step towards that healthy gut we all need and going gluten free when you have Coeliac Disease is only part of the journey. Try introducing probiotics foods and increasing your visits to nature spots to help support your gut and immune system.
More tips to come for optimising your gut health…..
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