How To Keep Your Gut Healthy As You Age
Gut health is more central to our overall well-being than many of us might realize until taking a closer look. At one point, many of us might have thought merely in terms of the somewhat simpler digestive system, consisting of a long tube through which food passes and ultimately excretes. Today, we know so much more about what our gut does for us 24/7/365. The gut is a highly active environment, affecting core aspects of our daily health and well-being and is essential for healthy aging.
Since nearly 40% of older adults suffer from one or more age-related digestive issues each year, it is worth your attention, even if you don't currently experience any gut health issues.
Gut Activity Starts with Your Food as It Travels Through the Digestive Tract
The moment you eat something, your digestive tract springs into action. As soon as you eat something, it makes its way through your digestive or gastrointestinal (GI) tract, which runs from the mouth to the anus and includes the intestines and stomach. This 30-foot, muscular tube activates and stays busy the moment you eat, breaking food and drink down into smaller molecules of nutrients. During the process, the blood absorbs valuable nutrients and transports them where the body needs them for repair, energy, and growth.
One thing to keep in mind is the better quality, healthy food we eat, the easier we make our busy GI tract's work in distributing the appropriate amount of nutrient-dense foods.
What Is the Gut Microbiome?
The gut fosters its own ecosystem known as the gut microbiome, which is home to trillions of busy bacterial cells—along with viruses and fungi—that have their own respective duties to carry out throughout your body. Together, bacteria, viruses, and fungi work to create balance in the body. These microorganisms living in your gut are invaluable to your health, and the average person has anywhere from 300 to 500 different beneficial bacterial species inhabiting their digestive tract.
What Happens In the Gut Microbiome?
The role of the gut microbiome plays a big part in our lives, performing a broad range of functions supporting:
The metabolism of fiber. The gut microbiome efficiently and effectively breaks down fiber, or roughage, in foods such as beans, nuts, seeds, fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. When the gut microbiome detects fiber, it goes to work performing a process called fermentation that results in the production of short-chain-fatty-acids (SCFAs) that help stabilize blood sugar levels, regulate appetite, protect the immune system, and lower cholesterol.
Immune support. The body's immune system protects the body from the spread of dangerous, pathogenic GI tract microbes, which makes for sea transport and colonization of beneficial microorganisms.
Communication with the central nervous system. Your gut and brain have a communication link, sometimes known as the second brain or the gut-brain axis, facilitated by your gut microbiome. Some psychiatric and emotional disorders such as depression are sometimes linked to a microbial imbalance, known as dysbiosis.
A Healthy Gut Microbiome Affects Your Whole Body
The gut microbiome affects our entire body from before we are born—in the birth canal—until our last breath. As noted above, a healthy microbiome is a significant factor in immune support, fiber metabolism, and the central nervous system, but it does much more, including:
Healthy weight. When the microbiome is in balance, it is easier to maintain a healthy weight. When in dysbiosis, individuals are more susceptible to unhealthy weight gain.
Heart health. According to Healthline, a healthy microbiome has been shown to play an important part in boosting good HDL cholesterol levels and triglycerides.
Lower risk of high blood sugar and diabetes. The number of healthy versus unhealthy microorganisms in the gut microbiome can serve as indicators of type 1 and 2 diabetes onset.
Brain health. Gut bacteria can help produce important brain chemicals called neurotransmitters, including serotonin, a key antidepressant neurotransmitter.
Why Gut Health Declines with Age
Everyone experiences gut health and digestive issues time-to-time and throughout life. However, as we get older, our digestive health—like so many other aspects of our health—begins to change. We start to experience increased indigestion, constipation, gas, and diarrhea, causing annoyance and disruption to our regular activities. While diet and exercise might play a role, there are also age-related factors to consider when deciphering the mystery of declining gut health.
As we age, we experience diminished amounts of pancreatic, gastric, and other secretions that aid in digestion. Further, as we slow down or otherwise change our eating habits, we might compromise our gut microbiome's health, which leads to poor nutrient absorption and digestion. This sets the stage for reduced immune support and unwanted molecules creeping into our circulatory system, also known as leaky gut, which causes headaches, gas and bloating, abdominal discomfort, poor elimination and constipation, and numerous other problems.
Digestive Disorders and Reasons You Might Experience with Poor Gut Health
It might help you to take a closer look at the reasons for potential digestive disorders you might experience if you have and maintain poor gut health. With this information, you can better understand how crucial it is to learn and practice healthy eating for seniors and get plenty of activity to avoid any issues.
Constipation
Changes in bowel habits are common among people entering their 60s and 70s, but some start to experience issues in their 50s. The most common problem encountered is constipation that features symptoms such as infrequent and painful bowel movements. They might also experience dry, hard stool.
Changes in the Digestive System
Your GI tract moves food through your body throughout its long and muscular tube, contracting and releasing as needed. However, as we age, the digestive process slows, meaning that food moves more slowly through the colon, putting us at risk for more absorption of the water from food waste, which leads to constipation.
Increasing Medication Use
As we get older, it isn't unusual to see an uptick in the prescription bottles in the medicine cabinet. The impact of many of these medications—some of which you might find ways to eliminate—can certainly play a role in poor gut health and digestive disorders. Even temporary medication consumption, such as narcotics for older adults who have undergone surgery, can directly affect the bowel and slow gut activity.
Inadequate Activity
Many people slow down activity when they age, which often causes obesity and constipation. Aging individuals might also need bed rest after an illness or surgery, such as joint-replacement. Unfortunately, the combination of inactivity and narcotics can cause havoc in the digestive system.
Lack of Hydration
Staying hydrated is an essential way to avoiding constipation at any age. However, complications for aging people come into play when we need to take diuretics to lower blood pressure. Diuretics cause increased urination and loss of fluids.
Diverticular Disease
Diverticular disease occurs when the small pouches that line colon start to bulge out the intestinal wall's vulnerable points, causing bloat, gas, cramps, and constipation.
Several other digestive disorders and causes to consider, including gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), ulcers, and polyps.
How to Maintain Good Gut Health
As you can see, gut health is vital to your overall well-being, making it well worth the effort to maintain throughout the aging process. Here are a few ways you can do that.
Eat a Healthy Diet to Balance Your Gut Microbiome
When you take a look at the foods needed to maintain gut health, you can see plenty of overlap between those foods and foods generally welcomed as healthy eating for seniors. Here are some foods you should add or increase to your diet to enhance and protect your gut flora:
Probiotics and fermented foods, including yogurt, cheese, kefir, sauerkraut, pickles, and kimchi.
Prebiotic foods that stimulate healthy gut bacteria growth include bananas, asparagus, garlic, leeks, artichokes, and apples.
Probiotics and prebiotics are known as good bacteria.
Additional things you can do to improve your gut health as you age include:
Strive for increased exercise and weight loss and learn how to maintain weight after weight loss.
Reduce stress.
Get plenty of sleep and rest.
Eat slowly.
Take a probiotic supplement.
Add and remove foods as needed to find and correct intolerances and deficiencies.
Do You Need More Help Improving Your Gut Health?
If you need more help in improving your gut health or any other aspect of your health, an online health coach app like Mighty Health offers you everything you need! Our online health app for people over 50 connects you to a team of personal coaches who want to help you reach your personal goals in gut health and beyond.
