One of my most delightful and adorable humans asked how is it that our skin health is dependent on the health and functioning of our gut. What a damn GREAT question, and one that I get asked often! So here is a simple answer….. It just is. Good enough? Juuussttt kidding. I am going to try keep this answer simple, as there are SO many ways that the functioning of our gut directly affects our skin health. And to be honest, this topic gets me a little excited, so I am going to try and keep my cool.
The gut-skin axis is enormous. I can honestly say I have never had a patient with skin health concerns where their gut was not a big driver. We MUST always look at the gut when addressing skin health. Leaving the gut out of the picture would be the whole border of the puzzle missing. Even with the most pure wholefoods diet, expensive skin care and treatments, perfect sleep, sunshine, exercise etc, if the gut is not addressed, your skin health will not thrive.
You may have heard this before, but the gut is often referred to as our ‘second brain’ or the ‘inner tube of life’, as it plays an enormous role in the functioning of every system in our body. Every. Single. System. From hormonal health, immune health, mental health, skin health, headaches/migraines, allergies/intolerances…you name it and the gut is involved.
Back on track, so how is the gut related to our skin? See below for 5 of the main reasons;
Elimination of toxins/wastes - if our digestion is not switched on or we have a sluggish gut/liver, the elimination of toxins and wastes (mainly via our bowels) will not be adequate. And where do you think those toxins/wastes then go? These excess toxins/wastes then try to make their way out via the largest organ system in our body…. OUR SKIN! Oh my!
I strongly recommend that you assess with a qualified healthcare practitioner as to why you might be suffering from poor digestion, subsequent abnormal bowel movements and thus, poor waste elimination.
Absorption of vital skin nutrients - Similarly, if our digestive system is not functioning at full potential, all the beautiful wholefoods that we are nourishing ourselves with will not be absorbed properly! Thus, we can become deficient in many of our skin-loving vitamins and minerals e.g. omega - 3, magnesium, zinc, vitamin C, glutathione, B vitamins and vitamin A.
Stress-Gut-Skin axis - As we know from a previous post, stress can wreak havoc with every system in our body, and particularly, the gut! One way that stress affects our skin is directly via it’s relationship with our gut. Read that again.
Stress is referred to as our ‘fight/flight’ response and is our reaction to a perceived immediate threat. For example, if you were faced with an immediate danger, aka a great white shark is in your close proximity, your ‘fight/flight’ response would intelligently kick in (thank goodness)! Your body would be pumped with cortisol and you would act accordingly (hopefully you survive this near shark attack by fighting or flighting)! The process of going in to this stress response takes all the energy and blood flow away from our gut and digestive system (because who needs to be digesting delicious hummus when you are being approached by a Great White!?) and directs in to our limbs so we can escape!
THUS, when we are stressed, what we are eating, will not be digested properly, nutrients will not be effectively absorbed, and toxins and wastes will not be eliminated properly - and now you know, where is that toxic build-up going to go? Yep. You got it. Our skin.Stress also causes our liver to convert carbohydrates to glucose (sugar), which leads to increased sugar circulating around the body, one of our skins’ worst enemies.
Gut Bugs - The population of microorganisms in our gut play a vital role in the proper functioning of our digestion, synthesis and absorption of nutrients, elimination of toxins, protection from undesirable microorganisms and more. In a nut shell, everyone’s gut is made up of good and bad bacteria, and we obviously want more good than bad. If the bad guys start to dominate, this is what we call a ‘dysbiotic’ gut which has been directly linked with skin health conditions such as acne and eczema. More research here.
‘Leaky Gut’ (increased intestinal permeability) - You have probably heard the term ‘leaky gut’ before, otherwise known as increased intestinal permeability. Let me explain that.
The role of the gut wall is to allow the flow + absorption of all the vitamins and minerals from the gut to our blood stream, whilst preventing the absorption of nasty toxins. If our gut wall is more ‘leaky’, the intestinal cell wall becomes unhinged and not so tightly joined. This can be due to infection, use of certain medications, particular gut conditions such as SIBO and inflammatory foods such as gluten. This ‘leaky gut’ isn’t so great at preventing toxins, undigested food particles, waste products and bacteria, from entering our blood stream. These toxins and undigested food particles are consequently circulated around our body, and potentially eliminated through the skin!
So there you have it, five of the main reasons as to how our skin health is directly connected to the functioning of our gut and digestive system. For starters, see here for tips on how to improve your digestion and here for some simple skin loving strategies. I hope this has helped!
Nutmeg
xxx
