Father of modern medicine Hippocrates said, “All disease begins in the gut.” Our world is filled with various illnesses of seemingly unknown causes. However, if we took a step back to analyze the condition of our guts overtime, we would realize that our gut had been crying out for help long before these symptoms manifested as disease. Use this post as a guide on how to watch for these symptoms and stop illness in its early stages.
1. Skin
When I entered high school, I was swept by the craze of skin care, led to the belief that unless I had my five-step skin care routine, I could not escape acne. Fortunately, I got tired of the mess of trying to find which products worked for me and just switched to using water. Through this journey, I learned my diet had the biggest effect on facial, and full body, skin’s health, not skincare products. Once I learned to get rid of inflammatory foods (i.e. fried foods, sugar, dairy, etc.), my skin began to naturally clear up from acne and scarring. You can read more about my natural skin care journey here.
2. Nails
Our nail beds rely on certain nutrients and minerals to maintain a strong integrity, components that we should be absorbing through our diet. Lack of these compounds causes our skin to become brittle and, as a result, peel. I used to constantly have peeling skin around my nails and weak cuticles. No matter how much I moisturized, the condition remained the same. Luckily, I learned that, like the afflictions I was facing with my skin, this issue was a sign of inflammation. As I transitioned to a plant-based diet the next winter, I noticed I did not suffer from the usual peeling skin. It was not the cold weather but diet that was majorly impacting my skin’s health.
3. Hair
Head and Shoulders is one of the leading anti-dandruff shampoos globally, which is evidence itself that most of the world suffers from gut issues. Dandruff, dry scalp, and many more hair related problems are a result of poor gut health. Like the skin, the scalp and hair are part of our overall body’s microbiome and requires a proper diet to be healthy.
4. Pain
Body pain, whether in the form of joint pain, headaches, menstrual cramps, etc. are typically the result of excess inflammation throughout the body. Inflammation is your body’s innate defense mechanism against toxins from our environment, stress, and, especially, diet. Our diet unfortunately causes our body to constantly ingest the toxins that it is trying to get rid of. As an immune response, the body creates chronic inflammation and, thus, chronic pain. Next time you reach for an Advil for your headache, instead consider inflammatory foods you have consumed recently to hopefully permanently eliminate your pain.
5. Odor
Why is it that some people have more body odor than others? Contrary to popular belief, nobody is born with a tendency to smell worse than others- it is your food![1] In fact, when in good health, your sweat should not have a scent at all. You have likely experienced this to a lesser extent with your breath, when after eating a meal that does not sit right with your stomach, you get a bad taste in your mouth. Accumulation of these bad foods manifests as various forms of body odor.
6. Sleep
Poor sleep is a problem that plagues many, and when asked why this occurred, the answer is typically, “I don’t know why, I just couldn’t sleep.” More often than not, a digesting stomach is what is keeping you awake.[2] Especially with late and heavy meals, your stomach is trying hard to move this food through your system to eliminate it, a process that can surely interrupt your rest. Even if you end up sleeping, it is likely that you will have nightmares, interestingly also a result of a poor diet.[3]
7. Sickness
We have all probably heard every excuse for why someone got sick: “The weather was changing too much”; “Someone sneezed on me”; and even “It’s just that time of year”. The truth is, our health should not be affected by these chance events but should be under our control. Your gut houses more than 70% of your immune system, meaning that the health of your body heavily relies on the health of your gut. These seemingly “random” flus and colds are actually the result of accumulated damage to our microbiome.
8. Mucus
Everyone’s body relies on a constant flow of bodily fluids to ensure nutrients are transported and waste is excreted. Mucus lines all parts of our body, capturing unwanted substances and guiding them out.[4] Typically, your body excretes this mucus, and with it the body’s waste, in unnoticeable amounts; for example, in stool, being unknowingly swallowed, or even appearing dried up on your eyes in the morning. However, disruption to your gut microbiome forces your body to expel more mucus to rid itself from what may be disturbing the gut.[5] This not only manifests as common colds, but also allergies and incessant obstructed breathing.
9. Dehydration
Drinking a sufficient amount of water is heavily emphasized in today’s health guidelines, but what I wish was considered first is whether this water is being absorbed by your system. Kidneys are our body’s primary regulator of hydration, so anything that affects or impairs their optimal function will also cause dehydration despite sufficient water intake. Primary causes of damage include excessive protein intake (increasingly common with today’s push for protein, more on this in my next blog post), high blood sugar, and excess salt. As I mentioned with mucus, your body requires a constant flow of fluids to allow for nutrient transport and waste excretion. Therefore, when your chronic dehydration is due to more than just a lack of water, it is crucial for you to address the root cause.
10. Poop!
I do not know when the discussion of poop became so taboo, but it is about time this changed. Your bowel movements are one of the biggest, if not the biggest, indicators that must be analyzed to assess your health. Excretion via poop is a primary way by which your body removes of waste, but current diets and lifestyle severely hinder this necessary process. Ideally, we should be pooping three times a day, once per meal. These poops provide you real-time insight to the condition of your gut; in other words, look at your poop! Stool should identify between type 4 and type 5 on the Bristol Stool Chart (chart below [6]) should not have a strong malodor, and should freely come out of your system. While this seems like an unrealistic fantasy for many, through diet and lifestyle changes, I assure you it is possible and will do wonders for your overall wellbeing.
Keep in mind, these listed symptoms are only the most common ones that I have experienced- there are many (many) more. Rather than addressing these symptoms, our society advertises various ways to cover them up, such as perfume, skin care, and cosmetics. In doing so, we ignore the early signs of disease our gut is so desperately trying to warn us with. Through this post, I urge you to become hyper-aware of your body; for example, keeping a food log to be able to trace symptoms back to the food. Any form of being more observant is doing yourself a great service and will begin the journey of healing your body from the inside out.
[1] Greger, Michael. How to Treat Body Odor with Diet. Video. Nutrition Facts, June 12, 2023. https://nutritionfacts.org/video/how-to-treat-body-odor-with-diet/
[2] The Link Between Nutrition and Sleep. National Sleep Foundation, November 12, 2020. https://www.thensf.org/the-link-between-nutrition-and-sleep/
[3] Nielsen, Tore, and Russell A Powell. “Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend: food and diet as instigators of bizarre and disturbing dreams.” Frontiers in psychology vol. 6 47. February 17, 2015. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4330685/
[4] Mucus, Our Body’s Silent Defender. UNC Health Talk, February 6, 2019. https://healthtalk.unchealthcare.org/mucus-our-bodys-silent-defender/
[5] Suriano, Francesco et al. “Diet, microbiota, and the mucus layer: The guardians of our health.” Frontiers in immunology vol. 13 953196, September 13, 2022. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9513540/#s2
[6] What to Know About the Bristol Stool Form Scale. Image. Medical News Today. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/bristol-stool-scale#chart
