At Healing Arts we do a lot of work with patients of reestablishing their gut environment. This type of healing usually starts with giving patients supplements to kill bad gut flora and remove toxins from the gut. Once that phase is over, we then give supplements to put good gut flora back in and other supplements that may be needed to rebuild the gut. This process of getting rid of toxins, bad microbes, heavy metals or chemicals, and inflammatory foods by using food supplements from an organic farm is how we give people back their health. We see all the time how helping detox from the gut in particular helps with brain chemistry. The majority of your neurotransmitters for your brain are made in the large intestine by bacteria. Yes, the bacteria actually produce serotonin, dopamine and GABA all of which play a key role in mood. So if the large intestinal environment is not healthy one could feel anxious, moody or depressed.
Functional medicine calls this the gut-brain axis and we need to make sure that it is healthy. One example of the relationship between the brain and the gut is IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) which has the common symptom of getting worse with stress. So not only does the gut make the neurotransmitters for the brain but it's a two way street and the mental stress in the brain can affect the function of the bowels.
Sleep can also be affected by the health of the gut for melatonin which was thought to only be produced in the brain by the pineal gland is also produced in the gut. By getting rid of toxins and reestablishing a healthier gut flora with good bacteria we help people get off their sleeping aids and antidepressants. We have been doing this for over 13 years at Healing Arts and are so glad science is catching up to our results in the office for about 11 months ago scientists actually started identifying which bacteria were linked to depression in this study in Nature Microbiology.
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