Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Your microbiome, and how to strengthen your good bacteria

We live in a new age of weird diseases and symptoms -- many traveling under the "auto-immune" banner. People by the droves go to their primary care doctors and complain of stomach and digestive ailments (bloating, food allergies, abdominal pain), light-headedness, fatigue, skin rashes, eczema, rosacea, and worse. Their doctors, in turn, follow the protocols of their training and order up standard tests in search of something physical. The tests come back negative. Now the flummoxed doctor is beginning to wonder if he has a hypochondriac on his hands, and the patients either persist or resign themselves to pain and misery, becoming depressed as symptoms continue to plague them. Sometimes more tests are ordered, but seldom is a solution found. It's a bad scene all around. Welcome to the world of microbes, the artful dodgers (at least when it comes to standard medical tests).

As patients feel sicker, doctors unknowingly feed the flames by prescribing more pain medication, antibiotics, etc., to try to alleviate symptoms and show their patients that they are "doing something." Vicious circle. The misery continues.

Well, if all politics are local, all health is in the gut and the skin. We are the microbial profile we feed on a daily basis. And while "feed" mostly means the mouth, it also importantly includes the skin. A good bit of advice is to live dirty and eat clean. That means we do ourselves no favors by constantly cleaning our hands with hand sanitizers, applying skin products and soaps with anti-bacterial elements and good-bacteria killing chemicals (go ahead, read the ingredients, see if you have the slightest idea about what you are slathering to your skin and scalp on a daily basis... didn't think so).

I have been eating a very low carb, organic grass-fed diet for almost five months, and my health has seriously improved. I have much more energy, don't have that brain fog, my rosacea has improved, my eczema has improved and certainly my moods have improved. I also have been using only products that support local bacteria, free of detergents and chemical additives, antiseptics and antibacterials.

Feed your good bacteria! My soap, full of coconut oil, shea butter, organic vervain and calendula will do just that.
I promise your skin will be amazingly healthy -- I do this for myself because I have to and now I will never go back to commercial skin products and the way they strip the good bacteria away.

Diet and skin products -- ask your gut what it prefers, and ask your skin what makes it glow.