Gut-Immune Connection: Does Gut Health Influence the Immune System?

Are you someone who gets sick easily? Or, maybe you’ve felt that you’re the first one to fall sick anytime there’s a new strain of bacterial or viral infection. Are people always telling you to include more probiotics in your diet to boost your immunity, and you’ve wondered what the association is between the two? This intricate association is known as the gut-immune connection!

That’s right! Your gut microbiome and immune system are related through a gut-immune connection. This is because approximately 80% of your immune system resides in your gut!

This incredible connection between your gut health and immunity means that taking care of your digestive system is crucial to staying healthy. Remember, your gut isn’t just about digestion, rather it’s a major player in your body’s defense system. 

In fact, every meal you eat, every lifestyle choice you make, and even your stress levels can impact your gut health. And this, in turn, will influence your immune response to oncoming illnesses, infections, and diseases. 

Want to learn how to use this connection to your benefit? Let’s first explore how this gut-immune connection works, before we dive into understanding how to use this connection to help better manage our health! 

What is the Gut-Immune Connection?

So, what is this gut-immune connection, you ask? As mentioned earlier, a significant portion of your immune system resides in your gut. Essentially, your healthy gut flora can help prevent infections and maintain a balanced immune response, which ultimately reduces the likelihood of chronic inflammation and autoimmune conditions​​.

There are trillions of bacteria living in your digestive tract, which make up the gut microbiome. And they play a key role in keeping your immune system in check, because these microbes help your immune cells identify and fight off harmful viruses and bacteria. They also make sure that your immune cells recognize the helpful bacteria and don’t attack your own cells—which is crucial to maintaining a proper balance in the gut microbiome—to avoid issues like inflammation, infections, and even autoimmune diseases. 

In addition to this, the gut-immune connection also plays a role in keeping harmful substances out of your bloodstream, while letting in the nutrients you need. This purpose is fulfilled by the gut lining, which is a line of defense established by millions of cells in your intestinal tract to ensure that your body is protected from pathogens. In fact, the immune system is constantly monitoring this barrier, and makes repairs as needed to keep everything running smoothly (this prevents conditions like leaky gut).

This means that as long as your gut and immune system are working together, you can ensure that your good health is their number one priority. So, by taking care of your gut—through diet, exercise, and stress management—you’re also giving your immune system the support it needs to protect you.

How Does the Gut-Immune Connection Influence Your Health?

Now that we understand the workings of the gut-immune connection, let’s take a look at how gut health affects the immune system. 

When you consume a C.R.A.P. diet that is full of Concentrated sugars, Refined carbohydrates, Artificial colors/flavors, and Preservatives, you are negatively influencing your gut health. These foods can contribute to gut inflammation and weight gain, which can disrupt your metabolism, hormones, insulin levels, blood sugar levels, and can lead to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. 

This particularly happens because a C.R.A.P. diet neither feeds the good bacteria in your gut, nor helps fight off the bad bacteria in your intestinal tract. Therefore, this leads to gut dysbiosis (an imbalance of good gut bacteria with the bad gut bacteria), which weakens your immune response to incoming viruses and makes the body susceptible to illnesses and diseases. 

In addition to consuming a diet rich in junk food, lack of sleep also contributes to poor gut health leading to a weak immune system. How does sleep become a factor for poor gut health and immunity, you ask? It’s actually quite a simple connection. When your body doesn’t get enough sleep or rest, your appetite and bowel movements are affected. 

You might not feel hungry or you might even feel bloated, gassy, or constipated due to a lack of sleep or imbalance in hormones. All of these factors affect your body’s ability to consume a diet rich in nutrients that promotes the well being of your immune system. In fact, a consistent lack of a nutrient-rich diet and irregular, unhealthy bowel movements can all lead to digestive issues that, over time, weaken your gut-immune connection and your body’s defense against illnesses. 

These health issues may cause stress in the long run, which will only contribute further to the whole problem. In other words, stress causes a lot of gut microbiome and immune system issues, because of its ability to increase your cortisol (stress hormone) levels. Now, an increase in cortisol levels is necessary when your body is in flight or fight mode (due to a stressor in the environment) to prepare you to remain alert in a challenging situation. But, the problem occurs when your body is constantly stuck in this fight or flight mode. 

In other words, constant increase in cortisol levels means that your liver is producing an excess amount of sugar that will turn into fat. In fact, higher cortisol levels is one of the main reasons why weight gain occurs (especially around the face and abdomen), and this can lead to digestive issues, insulin resistance, hormonal imbalance, and diabetes. 

Higher cortisol levels also make you crave unhealthy sugary foods, which means that you will not be consuming a diet that promotes the health of your gut and immune system. All of these stress-related factors will eventually contribute to weakening your body’s defenses and immunity. 

Basically, the gut-immune connection works in interconnected ways, which means that digestive issues (due to poor diet, lack of sleep, and stress) can cause low immunity and low immunity can cause further digestive issues (gut dysbiosis, inflammation, and leaky gut). 

How Can You Boost Your Immunity Using the Gut-Immune Connection?

So, we know the negative factors that can affect the gut-immune connection, but what about the positive ones that can help boost your immunity? Well, it’s as easy as a simple reversal of all of those negative elements in your lifestyle to help strengthen your gut health and immunity.

This means that you must focus on eating right, getting enough sleep, and reducing your cortisol levels by managing stress to boost your immunity by factoring in your gut health. 

Essentially, eating the right foods enriched with prebiotics (to feed your good gut bacteria), probiotics (to increase the live, beneficial bacteria in your gut), and polyphenols (to enhance your gut health and boost immunity) can all help you maintain good gut health and, in turn, strengthen your body’s defenses against illnesses. Studies show that a healthy gut microbiome can have a profound impact on your immune system and can restrict or prevent the development of autoimmune diseases that reside both in and out of the gut. 

Along with that, you are also able to help eliminate any digestive issues and strengthen your immune system by giving your body the rest it needs to thrive. This means getting enough sleep (8-9 hours each night) to make sure that you have regular, healthy bowel movements and a regular appetite, which will both account for a strong immunity to help your body fight off any pathogens. 

And, of course, if you’re looking to strengthen your gut-immune connection, then focusing on a good diet and getting enough sleep cannot help you if you’ve placed your body in a constant state of fight or flight mode. In other words, you need to reduce your stress levels to make sure that your body is able to benefit from the healthy eating and sleeping habits that you are trying to establish.

Make sure that you are incorporating different ways to manage and reduce your stress levels. In fact, studies have shown that walking is quite beneficial in maintaining good gut health, reducing your stress (and your cortisol hormone levels), and strengthening your immune system.

Here are some benefits of walking that are essential for nourishing the gut-immune connection:

• Improved Digestion: walking helps in digestion by stimulating intestinal contractions and improving bowel regularity. It can help reduce symptoms of constipation, promote a healthy digestive system, and therefore a healthy immune response. 
• Reduces Stress & Lowers Cortisol: walking has positive effects on mental health by reducing stress, anxiety, and depression. It can also boost your mood, increase your energy levels, and improve your overall immune health and mental well being by reducing cortisol levels.
• Balances Blood Sugar: a 15-20 minute walk after every meal can improve your blood sugar levels by improving insulin sensitivity. Research has shown that people who walk after meals have less blood sugar spikes.
• Increased Energy and Stamina: regular walking can improve energy levels and your overall stamina. It also enhances oxygen and blood flow to the muscles (especially if you do deep breathing while walking), and improves the efficiency of the cardiovascular system. 
• Improved Cardiovascular Health: walking regularly not only helps to strengthen your heart, but also lowers your blood pressure and improves blood circulation. Essentially, it can reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke.
• Boosted Immune System: as mentioned earlier, walking can enhance the immune system's function by making it more efficient at fighting off illnesses and infections.
• Better Sleep: engaging in regular physical activity like walking can also improve your sleep quality and duration. It can help regulate your sleep patterns and promote a more restful night's sleep.
• Weight Management: when it comes to helping people lose weight, walking has delivered great results. It can contribute to weight loss or weight management by burning calories, increasing metabolism, reducing cortisol levels, and improving your gut health.

Therefore, if you wish to boost your immunity using the gut-immune connection, then you have to remember that this relationship can only be strengthened by making specific diet and lifestyle changes. The earlier you make the change to healthy habits and healthy food, the earlier you can start building your immunity against future illnesses, infections, and even diseases.

What Are Some Immune-Boosting Foods?

Consuming a diet that is rich in prebiotics, probiotics, and polyphenols is a great way to ensure that you are taking care of your gut health and immunity, simultaneously. These foods not only help ensure that your body is getting proper nutrients to sustain itself, but also helps maintain the balance of the good gut bacteria with the bad bacteria in your gut microbiome. 

So, what are these foods that can help support this gut-immune connection and boost your immunity? Well, there are actually a lot of foods that can help promote the positive influence of gut health on immunity. Let’s take a look at a portion of them to understand the various health benefits each type of food provides: 

• Berries: blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, and raspberries are all rich in polyphenols. This means that they are capable of promoting the population of good gut bacteria (acting as prebiotics), and fighting off harmful bacteria and viruses (acting as probiotics). This prevents illnesses and infections in your body. 
• Leafy Greens: dark vegetables like spinach and kale are high in antioxidants, vitamin C, and beta carotene, which all help strengthen your gut-immune connection. Leafy greens are also great to include in your diet if you have trouble having regular, healthy bowel movements as they can help regulate your digestive system. This prevents issues like gut inflammation and leaky gut that weaken your immune system.
• Nuts and Seeds: nuts (i.e. walnuts, almonds) and seeds (i.e. chia seeds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds) are packed with healthy fats and nutrients like zinc that not only help your body function properly, but also help maintain the health of your immune system to keep off harmful viruses and bacteria from attacking the body.
• Spices and Herbs: turmeric, cinnamon, cilantro, garlic, and ginger all contain anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial, and antioxidant properties. These spices and herbs help maintain the health of the immune system in two ways: they strengthen the gut barrier to ensure pathogens don’t enter the bloodstream, and they help provide your immune system a boost in case dangerous viruses and infections have entered the body.
• Citrus Fruits: oranges, lemons, limes, and tangerines are some fruits that belong to the citrus fruits category. They are all full of vitamin C that helps increase your white blood cells, which are responsible for fighting illnesses and infections affecting the body. 
• Yogurt: yogurt is a great source of including probiotics in your diet. Probiotics help fight off the bad bacteria in your gut, strengthen the gut barrier, and prevent chronic inflammation. Studies have shown that fermented foods like yogurt can also heal the gut lining that may have suffered after the consistent use of antibiotics or even weight loss pills. 
• Red Peppers and Carrots: both red peppers and carrots, among other brightly colored vegetables, are full of beta carotene and vitamin C. Beta carotene strengthens the gut-immune connection by promoting the population of good bacteria in your gut, and this helps your immune system be better armed for recognizing and attacking the harmful bacteria.

Conclusion (and some immune-boosting recipes!)

By nourishing your gut with the right foods (i.e. probiotics, prebiotics, polyphenols), you'll be able to support digestion and help strengthen your immune system to fight off illnesses and infections.

Here are some great ways to include immune-boosting foods in your everyday diet: 

• Breakfast: Make this delicious, gut-immune connection boosting, Frozen Berry Yogurt Bark!
• Lunch: Try this yummy and healthy Tropical Green Smoothie!
• Snack: Make these Strawberry Mango Yogurt Popsicles for a frozen snack or treat!
• Dinner: Make these delicious Spicy Black Bean Tacos that include immune-boosting lime and cilantro! 

So, the next time you’re planning a meal, remember that you’re not just fuelling your body—you’re also feeding your immune system! 

Want to learn more about using your gut health and immunity to boost your weight loss journey?