Go with your gut: A healthy body starts with a robust microbiome

Gut health: not just digestion

Most people observe a casual "in one end and out the other'' interpretation of gut health. They eat and, a while later, deal with their bathroom business, giving little thought to what happens in the intervening hours. The cycle may go: Eating, noting digestion complaints ("lunch did not agree with me!"), downing an antacid chaser, feeling irritable. Rarely do we stop and wonder about the teeming universe within our bodies and its around-the-clock effects on our energy, immune health, mental clarity, and mood. If we could peer under our hoods, we'd make vastly different choices about what we're putting into the tank.1

Because gut health is way, way more than digestion. Getting straight on terminology will show how.

• Your gut microbiome is the ecosystem of microbes that reside along the digestive tract, predominantly in the colon.
• Your gut lining is the barrier between the inside of the body and your digestive tract.
• Digestion is the process of breaking down food as it moves through the digestive tract. It includes enzymes in your saliva, stomach, and intestines, gut motility, and pooping. It’s what most people imagine gut health is, but only a sliver of the action.
• Gut, or gut health, refers to digestion, your gut microbiome function, and the structural integrity of your gut lining. This is where we begin.

What your gut does

If you think your gut’s only jobs are clairvoyance and doing something mysterious with food, you’re only partially correct. A healthy gut is also essential for:

• Breaking down food so nutrients are more easily absorbed
• Absorbing nutrients, water, and electrolytes
• Surveilling of the immune system for environmental aggressors
• Making hormones and neurotransmitters like serotonin
• Supporting stress and mood through the gut-brain axis
• Housing trillions of beneficial bacteria that make up our gut microbiome and connect to the rest of our healthy systems
• And yes, pooping — eliminating what our bodies don’t need

Your gut lining is a barrier between the outside world and your body. As such, it acts as a gatekeeper, absorbing essential nutrients from the diet and preventing harmful substances, like toxins and bacteria, from entering and causing you harm.

If your gut is humming along smoothly, it’s easy to forget. But boy, do you notice it when it’s not. Signs of poor gut health may be bloating, indigestion, occasional constipation, diarrhea, or heartburn. But you could feel it elsewhere, too, with brain fog, skin conditions, headaches, fatigue, or irritability.

Meet your gut microbiome

It is impossible to overstate the influence your microbiome has on the health of your whole body. The microbes lining your gut are the link to your good health, even helping to regulate blood sugar and appetite. Your microbiome has 100 times more unique genes than the human genome, so it has a huge influence over your metabolic processes — maybe even more than your own body. Sit with that for a minute.

It’s a good thing there are hundreds of trillions of microbes because those guys have a lot going on. Here are the main ways your microbiome keeps you ticking:

• Your microbiome makes vitamins, particularly B vitamins, which your body uses to produce energy.
• The smaller a nutrient, the better it absorbs. Your microbiome breaks down phytonutrients, like the citrus bioflavonoids in AG1, into more absorbable forms — meaning more health benefits.
• It produces healthy compounds called short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), which support the overall health of cells in our gut and body, including your metabolism.
• Your gut houses a significant part of your body's immune system (a whopping 70%). When healthy, the gut microbiome constantly communicates with the immune system, strengthening it, building immune tolerance, and even fighting unwanted bacteria.

While you’re settling in to watch Yellowstone after dinner, your microbiome is working away at a genuinely remarkable, life-giving process to which we give little thought. Put simply — although there’s nothing simple about the marvels of your microbiome — highly processed meals lead to dysbiosis, and fiber-rich foods lead to a diverse microbiome. And more diversity means better health.

The gut-mood connection

You’ve probably felt your insides do flips before a big test, job interview, or race. We all know it: Feeling stressed can affect your digestion. It’s a prime example of the direct link between your body and mind known as the gut-brain axis. Communication via nerves, hormones, and neurotransmitters plays a crucial role in how we feel physically and mentally, influencing our mood, brain function, and cognition.

Your gut has its own nervous system called the enteric nervous system, also known as the “little brain” (relative to your actual big brain). It is the only organ system outside the central nervous system with an extensive neural circuit system that functions independently outside the brain. So when you feel something in your gut, it's real.

The primary producer of your body’s serotonin is your gut. In your brain, serotonin is the "feel good" neurotransmitter, affecting your mood and memory. In the body, serotonin is connected to how quickly food passes or doesn’t — (hello, constipation) and can be responsible for nausea. So, it seems to be the "feel good" neurotransmitter everywhere.

Love your gut

You’re probably already doing things to improve your gut health. Maybe you’ve added probiotics to your diet or have noticed that getting enough sleep or exercise helps you feel “regular.” Here are a few suggestions for building healthy daily habits and taking care of your gut health so your gut can adequately take care of you.

Maintain proper nutrition.

• Limit intake of processed foods: These foods can negatively impact the gut microbiome and nutrient absorption. Eat them sparingly.
  Diversify your diet: Eat a variety of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, and lean proteins to ensure a range of nutrients and fiber.
• Eat prebiotics: Prebiotics are a specialized group of dietary fibers that bypass digestion to serve as “microbiome fertilizers” for healthy bacteria in your colon. Many plants are good sources: asparagus, avocado, cabbage, apples, and artichokes.
• Eat fermented foods: Things like yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, and kimchi contain probiotics, which support gut health.
• AG1 has pre- and probiotics to bolster digestion and nutrient absorption and support your microbiome. Its adaptogens help you manage stress — a known trigger of an unhealthy gut.*

Exercise, but not too hard.

An extensive clinical review showed that exercise is generally good for microbial diversity in the gut.3 And another study proved what we already suspected: Inactivity can lead to constipation.4 However, high-intensity activity can impact the gut barrier, affecting nutrition and the immune system.5 If you must go hard, ensure you get the proper nutrition for recovery.

Drink plenty of water.

Drinking enough water helps to maintain hydration, aids digestion, and supports optimal gut function.

Get enough sleep.

The relationship goes both ways, meaning poor gut health can disrupt your slumber, and inadequate sleep can negatively impact your gut health.6 Getting enough rest regulates this communication pathway, affecting mood, stress, and cognitive function.7 Do yourself a favor and hit the sack.

The gut health challenge

Challenge yourself to make one change today to support your gut health: A scoop of AG1 once daily supports your overall gut health with pre- and probiotics and digestive enzymes, which help aid the breakdown of nutrients in the digestive tract and support a healthy gut lining.* The changes you feel might motivate you to make more changes in the coming weeks.

Once you’ve gotten into the habit of drinking AG1, you should start to feel improved digestion, regular bowel movements, and fewer cravings thanks to pre- and probiotics. The variety of nutrients you’ll be getting will soothe and calm your uneasy stomach while helping the transit time of ingredients throughout the digestive tract. The pre- and probiotics will promote the diversity of your gut’s microbiome, which helps increase the absorption of nutrients.*

After continuous support of the gut, you may notice a balanced metabolism, calm mood, skin health, and more. As the body is supported with a variety of nutrients, you may experience benefits like balanced functioning of hormones and the immune system. Foundational vitamins and minerals absorbed through the gut act as substrates for hormone production, while the gut microbiome contributes to overall immune health. The immune system can actively support other areas in the body for vitality, energy, and clear skin, which all ties back to the gut.*

Gut health is complex. Support it with good food and sleep. Your gut will do the rest.

^{* These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.}