A gut health expert has recommended a 21p-a-day supplement that can help prevent inflammation, which she says everyone should take. Dr Ghazala Aziz-Scott, who works for the Marion Gluck Clinic on Harley Street in London, is a specialist in integrative women's health and bioidentical hormone balancing. She is seeking to help the public maintain good gut health, prevent inflammation, encourage good digestion, and protect people from other illnesses.
Three golden rules for gut health
Dr Ghazala recommends everyone take omega-3 supplements to maintain a good ratio to omega-6 levels. Omega-6 is found in vegetable oils and lots of common foods and can cause inflammation as well as the tightening of blood vessels if you have a poor balance.
When it comes to food, Dr Ghazala recommends maintaining a balanced diet with a range of vegetables and avoiding toxins like pesticides. A big help in avoiding pesticides is cleaning vegetables before cooking and avoiding plastic-wrapped food. Another food rule is making sure to prioritise time management to reduce stress and avoid unhealthy relationships. Stress leads to high cortisol levels, which also impact the gut.
Why the gut is central to health
She said: "The gut is the central axis of the health of the body, we have to have a healthy gut so the rest of the body is healthy. Poor gut health can lead to inflammation which is the cause of many issues."
"Nutrition is a big part of this, people are eating ultraprocessed foods which contain additives, and not enough fibre. Really, we should be having whole healthy meals cooked with fresh food from scratch, like what our grandparents cooked. But with the modern lifestyle now, that's all gone out the window. My one thing is, everyone should be on high-dose omega three. We need it for our brains and cell membranes to be healthy, and when the ratio to omega six is distorted, that's when you get inflammation."
The cause of many gut issues comes from the junctions in the gut membrane leaking, which Dr Ghazala noted allows foreign particles into the bloodstream and causes inflammation. Causes of gut membrane, also known as leaky gut, include stress, toxins, alcohol, diet and genetics.
Practical advice and the key supplement
In spite of some factors not being in our control, Dr Ghazala stated that it's important to view your gut health as an 'act of self care', similar to doing skincare, meditating or writing in a journal.
"We should try to eat what our grandparents ate. Our gut hasn't evolved in the way dietary changes have evolved. There didn't used to be all these restaurants and takeaways, it was about simplicity and cooking from scratch. Fresh food, plenty of veg and trying to avoid ultraprocessed things as well as pesticides which have a negative impact on the gut. We live in quite a toxic soup, sometimes it's unavoidable. But we need to be aware of what we can do," she said.
Rather than spending money on endless supplies of supplements promoted online, Dr Ghazala said it's more important to have a diet that's healthy and balanced. She noted that if you took every supplement 'you'd be rattling'.
The supplement she says is more important than any other is omega-3. The human body converts linolenic acid, the most common form of omega-6, into a compound that can promote inflammation and blood vessel tightening. Due to most processed foods made with vegetable oils containing it, most people consume too much omega-6. A poor omega-3 to six ratio causes problems for your health.
Dr Ghazala explained: "You need to be having at least a 1000mg supplement a day as well as two portions of oily fish a week. It's not the amount, but the ratio being distorted, which can lead to inflammation."
On top of making sure to wash vegetables before cooking them and avoid plastic-wrapped foods, Dr Ghazala warned microwaving food in plastic containers can also allow toxins to permeate the food. It's also important to use paraben-free hygiene products and avoid shampoos with silicon in them.
She said: "If you wipe down a work surface with bleach spray then chop food on it, it can go into the food, it's quite scary. In the old days we used washing up liquid and hand-washed in the sink. Even non-stick pan coating can erode and go into the food. These are all tiny things that build up and create a toxic load in our bodies."
Dr Ghazala added: "There are all these different longevity protocols now and different supplements people say you should take. But if you actually just invest in eating healthily, exercising, sleeping eight hours a night and having healthy relationships, that goes a long way."
