2019 has been labeled the year of ‘digestive wellness’ with more people focusing on gut health and its importance.
There are scores of food and drinks – like milk kefir and fermented foods – that can help you keep a healthy gut by fostering the health of the trillions of microbes – or microbiota – that live there. But not all of us know what gut health actually is, why it matters, or how we can manage it at home.
ALSO SEE: 5 Reasons Why Fermented Foods Are Good For You
We have rounded up our top seven gut health books to help get you clued up – from what ‘gut health’ means, to how it’s linked to the brain and healthy eating plans to help you kick start your digestive wellness.
Thin from Within by Robyn Youkilis
Robyn Youkilis focuses on how cultivating gut health can provide a sustainable way to stay slim.
ALSO SEE: Can Poor Gut Health Cause Weight Gain?
The Magic of Food: Live Longer and Healthier–and Lose Weight–with the Synergetic Diet by Michael T. Murray
This is an accessible and comprehensive eating plan based on Michael’s extensive knowledge of food as medicine to promote optimum health.
Follow Your Gut: The Enormous Impact of Tiny Microbes by Rob Knight; As told to Brendan Buhler
This book gives a detailed tour of the ‘microbiome’ and explores known effects of antibiotics, probiotics, diet choices, and access to livestock on children’s lifelong health.
Brain Maker: The Power of Gut Microbes to Heal and Protect Your Brain–for Life by David Perlmutter and Kristin Loberg by David Perlmutter
Dr Perlmutter explains the connection between intestinal microbes and the brain, describing how the microbiome develops from birth and evolves based on the environment, how it can become ‘sick’, and how nurturing gut health through a few easy strategies can alter your brain’s destiny for the better.
The Good Gut: Taking Control of Your Weight, Your Mood, and Your Long Term Health by Justin Sonnenburg, Erica Sonnenburg, Andrew Weil
The Good Gut offers a new plan for health that focuses on how to nourish your microbiota, including recipes and a menu plan.
The Diet Myth by Tim Spector
Professor Tim Spector demystifies the common misconceptions about fat, calories, vitamins and nutrients. Only by understanding what makes our own personal microbes tick can we overcome the confusion of modern nutrition, and achieve a healthy gut and a healthy body.
ALSO SEE: 8 Diet Secrets For Long-Term Weight Loss
The Mind-Gut Connection: How the Hidden Conversation Within Our Bodies Impacts Our Mood, Our Choices, and Our Overall Health by Emeran Mayer
This book teaches us how to harness the power of the mind-gut connection to take charge of our health.
Compiled by Features Writer Savanna Douglas
