Beauty begins in the belly. Gut health + skin
Did you know that your skin health and gut health are linked? The skin is an extension of the gut. When the gut is out of balance, it can show up through the skin.
The gut is the central hub of your immune system, where you manage hormones, fight infections, remove toxins, and create nutrients. As a result, the health of your microbiome has a big influence on your skin, wellbeing, weight, health, and brain function.
How the gut and skin are connected
To understand what's happening topically, you need to take a dive and see what’s going on beyond the surface. Where there is gut inflammation, there will likely be skin inflammation caused by an imbalance in your microbiome.
Our body essentially has two brains - the gut affects the brain and the brain affects the gut.
Our brain and gut are always in communication with each other via a nerve called the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve runs from your brain down to your colon, connecting the two areas. Our gut and skin are also in constant communication, and this allows the gut and skin to communicate via our microbiome. So when you notice something different on your skin, it could be your gut communicating to you.
An easy way to think of how your gut affects your skin is by imagining the gut as a garden. The plants that grow in the garden will struggle to bloom if the soil isn't healthy, balanced, and thriving with a variety of nutrients and bacteria. We must first focus on gut health in order to have beautiful, healthy skin.
Be mindful of your gut
While some skin conditions are either caused by — or linked to — gut health issues, addressing this connection can be difficult. Because the symptoms we face with skin health are often similar to when our gut health is out of balance. For example, if we eat something that doesn’t agree with our gut, it’s likely our skin won’t agree with it either. This may seem obvious, but it does require careful attention to what we’re putting into our body to cause this reaction in our skin.
Keeping that in mind, if we have a leaky gut, we’re likely not able to absorb and therefore use all of the vital nutrients, minerals, and vitamins for glowing, healthy skin. So, if our gut is considered 'leaky', toxins that would usually be digested and removed may enter the bloodstream, putting additional strain on our liver and prompting our skin to have to deal with the problem. Leaky gut also produces inflammation in the body, which has been connected to a variety of skin conditions, including acne, eczema, and psoriasis.
Nurture and nourish your gut
At SELF_ we always recommend a gut cleanse for skin that reflects inflammation. We prefer and recommend Regul8. It is gentle, and it works by utilising pre and probiotics as well as digestive enzymes.
The Regul8 Digestive Tune-Up® is a herbal-based three-step process that cleanses, soothes and repairs the gastrointestinal system. It removes unwanted and unhealthy organisms, soothes existing irritations and aids sustainable gut health. This rebalances the good bacterial cultures and provides them with the appropriate environment to flourish. We call this the Weed, Feed, Seed approach.
Please book a consultation if you would like to talk personally about how you think your skin may be impacted by your gut health and we can guide you in healing. When your skin is glowing, we know that you feel well too - it is the ultimate SELF_care.
Love,
Kelly & the team af SELF_