Why we all need to take care of our guts

It is said that one in three of us suffers from some form of gut disorder. Clearly many of us do not take adequate care of our digestive health. Putting it bluntly, we do not love our guts.

Furthermore, we do not bless our bowels, idolise our ileums or cherish our stool scales either. However, help is at hand.

Love Your Gut Week runs from 24 to 30 August this year (2009) and is brought to us by the combined efforts of two national charities, Core and the Gut Trust. They have created a website (www.loveyourgut.com) through which you can order a free information pack, which stresses the importance of good digestive health.

Core (that’s the working name of the Digestive Disorders Foundation) is a national charity that funds medical research into the prevention, cure and treatment of digestive disorders.

It also provides information for patients and sufferers of such conditions as pancreatitis, hepatitis, ulcerative colitis, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), Crohn’s disease and digestive cancers.

The Gut Trust provides dedicated support to people with IBS, helping them and their families and carers to manage their condition and achieve an improved quality of life.

Love Your Gut Week, which is now in its 11th year, sets out to explain how the gut works and the ways in which we abuse it. The campaign goes on to outline the simple steps one can take to fuel the digestive system with a balanced diet and to describe how relatively small amounts of exercise can benefit the gut as well as the whole body.

It shows how one’s sleep patterns, levels of stress, obesity, smoking and drinking can all take their toll and recommends ways to improve our digestive well-being.