The Best Supplements for Gut Health

If there is one thing that we will never stop talking about at Elevays, it’s gut health. Maintaining a healthy gut microbiome and lining is essential for healthy digestion, energy,  hormones, and mood. If you want to become the best version of self, you need to heal your gut. In this article, we’re making it easy by talking about the best gut health supplements  to get your gut right. 

Gut Health 101 

What is the microbiome?

The gut microbiome is the world of gut bacteria that lives in your intestinal tract. It consists of both good bacteria and bad bacteria-but while you might think eliminating the bad bacteria is key to a healthy microbiome, the truth is, a balance of both is where the real magic happens. The optimal healthy gut microbiome  contains 20,000 to 30,000 species of bacterium. The greater the diversity, the healthier the microbiome. 

When our gut microbiome is happy, it’s able to produce important hormones for mood and energy, absorb nutrients, and keep the immune system healthy. Disturbances to the gut microbiome can contribute to bloating, constipation, diarrhea, weight gain, allergies, mood  inflammatory, bowel disease, celiac disease, acne, sickness, low energy, depression, anxiety, and other chronic health conditions. 

As the winter season comes near, it’s essential that we prioritize gut health as most of our immune system lives in the gut. Gut health = immune health, and vice versa.

Gut Barrier Integrity 

Now gut barrier integrity is a whole other thing -but a really important thing. When your gut lining is compromised by processed foods, antibiotics, pesticides, etc, then your digestive tract won’t properly absorb nutrients and they will leak into your bloodstream causing inflammation and allergies. The beauty of this is that we can improve gut health lining with supplements! Which brings me to my next point. 

What Wrecks Gut Health and Digestive Health? 

• Medications like NSAIDs and antibiotics 
• Stress 
• Highly processed diet 
• Pesticides, herbicides, and GMOs 
• Processed sugar and flours 
• Unregulated nervous system 
• Adrenal fatigue 
• Nutrient malabsorption 
• Lack of diversity in diet 

Why Gut Health Supplements?

In this day and age, diet and lifestyle can only go so far. We are constantly bombarded with outside toxins that wreak havoc on gut health: think pesticides, GMOs, NSAIDs, antibiotics, processed food, and stress. Sometimes, even the healthiest of people can still experience gut issues. That’s why supplementing with a really good quality gut health supplement is essential. 

The Best Gut Health Supplements 

Probiotics to Foster Healthy Bacteria & Gut Microbiota Diversity

One of the hottest topics surrounding the gut health world is probiotics. What is the best probiotic supplement?! 

Not all probiotics are created equally. Some brands have different probiotic strains and focus on the things a good quality probiotic supplement needs- like good quality healthy bacteria, and the amount of active-fluorescent units (AFUs). 

AFUs represent a count of “living and viable” bacteria in a probiotic. A probiotic won’t work unless it makes it alive to the digestive tract. So yes, the amount of AFUs is crucial, but it won’t matter unless they get there alive. 

For example, there is a process of biofermentation, a metabolic process, used to generate energy for cell growth and multiplication. If a brand uses biofermentation, carefully, they will ensure viability. 

Important probiotic bacteria and gut bacteria like lactobacillus acidophilus (a popular probiotic strain) are also very fragile. They are sensitive to heat, light, oxygen, and water. This also impacts the ability for a probiotic supplement to make it to the GI tract, promote happy gut flora, and work its magic. 

Some of the best probiotic brands to promote healthy gut bacteria:

Seed 

Ritual Synbiotics + 

Collagen to Support Gut Integrity & Healthy Digestion

Now onto our favorite topic and arguably the more important gut health supplement. There is no use in spending time and money on probiotics if your gut lining has been compromised. A permeable gut lining makes it nearly impossible to absorb and assimilate nutrients. It also causes allergies, inflammation, acne, and can lead to chronic disease, irritable bowel syndrome, hormonal issues, and mood disorders. Without nutrients, your body doesn’t have the energy to do what it needs to do! 

This is where collagen comes in, one of the best supplements for gut health. Collagen is the “glue” in your body that kind of holds everything together.It is the most abundant protein found in the body and plays a huge role in the health of your digestive system. It supports the gut lining, which acts as a gatekeeper between your intestines and bloodstream. 

When your intestinal lining becomes compromised due to stress, poor diet, or even medications, it can allow undigested food particles, toxins, and harmful bacteria into the bloodstream. This can create inflammation leading to food sensitivities, leaky gut, and other autoimmune conditions. 

Supplementing with a high quality collagen can heal and repair the gut lining to support your digestion, energy, and mood (not to mention beauty). 

It is super supportive for gut health because it strengthens the integrity of the gut lining. It’s absolutely necessary to avoid food sensitivities, skin issues, digestive problems, mood disorders, and more. Does it make sense now why collagen is one of the best gut health supplements? 

So now onto the even more important things: just like probiotics, not all collagens are made the same. If you are looking for a collagen supplement that will actually work, then it must:

• Be clinically proven to support gut health 
• Is bovine bioactive collagen 
• Contain bioavailability boosters that help the body actually absorb and assimilate the collagen for real results 
• Contain adaptogens to help with a healthy stress response (stress is one of the root causes of poor gut health)
• Contain other vitamins and minerals to nourish your body from the inside out. 
• Be allergen free (non-gmo, gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, nut-free) 

There is no list here for the best collagen supplements, because we searched high and low for one, and we couldn’t find anything that met our standards. So we made our own. And you better believe it checks off every box above. 

Our Superfood Collagen 

Our collagen is clinically proven to heal the gut lining. It is crafted with collagen boosters like vitamin c, acerola cherry, black pepper extract, aloe vera, and bamboo extract.. 

It includes essential vitamins to compensate for nutritional gaps that are caused by poor gut health and nutrient malabsorption. And, it’s made with stress-relieving and beauty boosting adaptogens to soothe your nervous system and promote radiance all at the same time. 

I without a doubt can say that we have the best collagen for gut health on the market. And you can get it here. 

Other Tips for Gut Health

Beyond supplementing, there are diet and lifestyle choices that you can make to improve gut health. These include meditation, stress management, yoga, ginger tea, probiotic food (think fermented foods!), prebiotics and prebiotic fiber, consuming organic when possible (to get that beneficial bacteria from the soil!), eating slowly and without distractions, digestive enzymes, and more.

Now, I know this can seem overwhelming, and that’s why I recommend that everyone start with a gut health supplement first! For example, taking our Beauty Collagen Complex in the morning is easy! Its delicious vanilla honey taste will make you crave taking care of your gut — and the insane results are just another benefit.

If you want healthy digestion, a properly functioning digestive tract, beneficial gut microbiota and diversity, level mood, clear skin, and more, then investing in a gut health supplement is one of the best things you can do for yourself.

I hope this article has given you an idea of what to look for in the best gut health supplements, and some ones that you can try today. Let me know if you have any questions in the comments below.