Can Drinking More Water Heal Your Leaky Gut?
Has anyone told you to drink more water to help heal your leaky gut?
What!? Drinking water seems too basic to really help with anything, especially leaky gut and symptoms like heart burn, acid reflux, gas/bloating… Right?
Think again!
After breathing exercises, drinking more water is my go-to first steps for anyone suffering with leaky gut or any form of digestive & elimination distress.
You may have come across how drinking water can support energy, promote weight loss, flush toxins, improve skin and hair, prevent cramping and even prevent headaches. And when it comes to gut health you may have heard that is helps to prevent constipation.
But in relation to gut health, it does more than just prevent constipation.
The most obvious benefit is that water can help move matter through the digestive tract, this is how it helps with constipation. This process also aids the purge of toxins and metabolic waste supporting a healthier environment not only for you, but for your microbiome. The bacteria residing in your gut that is critical for digestion.
This healthier environment can lead to less stress on the GI tract allowing it to remain calm and heal when needed. Leaky gut is a condition where the intestinal wall is persistently inflamed and the tight junctures between cells become “loose,” allowing food particles too larger for normal absorption, bacteria, toxins to pass into your blood stream.
Being well hydrated supports the digestion of soluble fiber. Again, this helps with elimination, but soluble fiber is critical for microbiome health. Though your enzymes cannot break down most complex carbohydrates, the microbes in your GI tract do. Soluble fiber is considered prebiotics, microbe food.
Other beverages, especially sugar laden ones, support microbe growth as well. Just not the microbes you want to have reside in your GI tract in large quantities.
And just having a sip of water before you eat can help with the digestion of soluble fiber as well. The digestion of carbohydrates begins in the mouth. By drinking water 5 – 10 minutes before you eat, you can stimulate the production of saliva and kick start the release of your digestive juices.
When your digestive juices are more concentrated, and you are properly digesting the food you eat, this can help reduce the occurrence of acid reflux which in turn reduces the chance for ulcers.
And when you are digesting properly, and your microbiome is healthy – you have less gas and bloating. Less digestive stress overall – less IBS, gastritis and chronic inflammation.
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