How Gut Health is related to Cancer recovery!
Your health is in your gut. A common statement you must have heard. A part of recovering from cancer treatment does lie in your gut. Many health professionals state that the possibility of preventing cancer too lies in your gut health. Let us understand more about gut health.
What is the gut? Your gastrointestinal system comprises your mouth, (throat), oesophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, rectum, anus, salivary glands, liver, gallbladder, and pancreas, which form the digestive juices and enzymes.
Microbiome, a group of organisms also known as bacteria live in your gut. Now good bacteria are obviously what we need to combat any kind of disease including cancer. An imbalanced gut increases the changes of cancer cells growing and forming into a tumour. A Healthy and diverse microbiome leads to more effective immunotherapy and targeted drug therapy in cancer patients, and lesser side effects of chemotherapy. A healthy gut also enables bone marrow and stem cell therapy to be more effective.
5 ways to improve gut health to prevent or undergo effective cancer treatment.
Maintain a record of the foods you are eating daily. Then slowly one by one cut out foods that are highly processed like frozen food items, aerated drinks, chips, ice creams etc. As you decrease one processed item increase one natural, high-fibre food item in your diet. E.g. replace burgers with fresh fruit, ice cream with natural smoothies along with chia seeds, aerated drinks with nimbu pani or fresh coconut water. This way you can slowly inculcate fibrous food in your diet which is very important for good gut health. While you increase fibre in your diet do not forget to increase your intake of water. Water helps fibrous food to be digested and toxins in the body are expelled through urination.
Eliminate all artificial sugars from your diet slowly. A high sugar diet enables harmful bacteria to grow in the gut. Every cell in our body needs the energy to grow, this energy comes from glucose. When there is excessive sugar in your diet cancer cells too use them to grow and multiply. So, increase your intake of natural sugars that you get from fruits, and nut, and stop eating bakery products, candies, desserts, and sweetened drinks.
Eat foods that contain beneficial bacteria. Like fermented food, homemade yoghurt from organic milk, sauerkraut, apple cider vinegar and kombucha. Fermented foods like idli, and dosa eaten in moderation are also helpful. Bananas are excellent for gut balance and prevent the side effects of antibiotics. Cancer treatments like radiation and chemotherapy disrupt the balance of good bacteria in our gut. After chemotherapy, many patients suffer from diarrhoea. Including these gut-friendly foods in your diet will enable you to go through treatment and regain your health.
Include exercise and deep breathing in your daily routine. Yes, it is good for your gut too. Scientists have noticed that including 45 mins of moderate-intensity exercise 5 times a week boosts gut health and decreases the chances of developing cancer, especially colon cancer. Exercise helps in regular bowl cleaning and reduces constipation, bloating and gas which are signs of a bad gut.
Good gut health leads to a calm mind. It also helps us deal with, panic attacks stress and anxiety. Chronic stress causes havoc in your system. It causes cancer to spread faster in your body. Neurotransmitters like norepinephrine are released when the body combats stress, which stimulates cancer cells to grow and form tumours. Your gut and levels of stress are directly connected. Good gut microbiota communicates with the vagus nerve and neurotransmitters are released to combat stress. Therefore, eating right and exercising to maintain good gut health are important.