How Your Gut Health Affects Your Skin
Ever wondered how your gut health affects your skin? Can taking charge of your gut health make you glow from the inside out? Science suggests yes, it can! Multiple studies have shown how our gut affects more than just what we eat, and has a massive impact on our overall health! The gut is home to trillions of ‘good’ bacteria that do everything from digesting food, to absorbing essential nutrients.
DID YOU KNOW?
75% of your immune system stems from the gut!
The state of the skin can be a great indicator for internal problems of the gut, like inflammation in the form of acne or rosacea, and rough, dry skin like eczema or psoriasis a sign of imbalance in the gut. The skin-gut connection is an important one, and in some cases requires a bit of digging with your health professional and possibly an over-hall of negative influences like consistent consumption of alcohol, smoking and highly processed/sugary foods.
Typical skin issues that arise from poor gut health include:
- Acne that doesn’t resolve from skincare/treatments
- Redness
- Inflammation
- Dry skin patches
Now you know how your gut health affects your skin, its time to heal!
To heal the skin, you may need to first focus on the gut. Other factors such as stress, diet and lifestyle all come into play so it is important to focus on all of these things so we can get to the root cause.
A great help is increasing your intake of prebiotic rich foods, which are a type of fibre that act as fuel for bacteria to support the good bacteria within the gut. Prebiotics occur naturally in foods like onion, garlic, oats, apples, and leeks. Your gut microbiome benefit from these food as they feed on the fibre, which has a roll-on effect of creating anti-inflammatory compounds within the body that are essential for skin, metabolic, brain and immune health.
Topically, prebiotics are also used to help support the good and bad bacteria which live on the surface of the skin. It’s estimated that every square centimetre of skin on the body is home to a million bacteria! Using prebiotic based skincare can replenish this good bacteria and lead to a happy, healthier, glowing skin!
The gut-skin connection also proves that what we put into our body has a major effect, on not only our skin butt our state of life! A better gut means increased digestion, improved life vitality, stronger immune system, and overall healthier skin.
By Riley McDonald
Dermal Therapist