There are new trends in food appearing every day. The moment is when sauerkraut and kombucha are all over the place. Let’s get some insight into why foods that reduce inflammation and improve gut health are becoming more popular.

If you’re looking for a solution to boost your immunity, stress response, depression, anxiety or arthritis, IBS, or leaky gut syndrome, you’ll discover that improving your gut health is central to many pieces of advice from health professionals.

Minerals and vitamins are the essential part of your body that helps perform different body functions. They’re called “essential” vitamins because our body requires them for proper functioning, and digestion isn’t the only one.

Certain vitamins are more crucial to digest than others. The majority of the vitamins you require when you follow a healthy diet, as per the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Learn which are the best vitamin for gut health and a healthy digestive system, and how you can incorporate them into your daily eating routines.

Best Vitamin For Gut Health: 7 Best Vitamins and Minerals for Gut Health

Have you heard that nearly 70 million people of the US have digestive problems and poor gut health? These digestive problems include chronic heartburn, GERD acid reflux, IBS and abdominal discomfort, and bad gut health.

There are many medicines you can choose from to improve your digestive health. However, these drugs are usually associated with undesirable negative side consequences. If you prefer the natural way of introducing the right nutrients for healthy digestion into your daily diet and you’re unsure of what vitamins to take and which ones to avoid, you’re at the right place.

We’ve put together 7 most important and the best vitamin for gut health. And we’ll give you scientifically-proven reasons for why they’re so effective to improve your overall gut health.

7 Best Vitamins to Improve Gut Health

A growing number of users are turning towards natural solutions to improve their life and overall health, which means that they must ensure they receive sufficient amounts of certain minerals and vitamins from their food. We’ve done our research and identified the top seven nutrients essential for gut health that you need to concentrate on.

Vitamin B12

The first on our list of nutrients for a healthy gut is Vitamin B12. Vitamin B12’s principal roles are to maintain the blood cells in your body and nerves healthy and manage the health of your gut. It is also essential in making DNA and can aid in preventing a type of anemia called megaloblastic anemia. It is obtainable from food items you consume and from dietary supplements. The foods rich in these vitamins include clams, liver and eggs, fish, poultry meat, yogurt, and certain breakfast cereals.

How Vitamin B12 Supports Gut Health?

One major way that vitamin B12 helps maintain the health of your digestive tract is to aid in restoring the balance of bacteria within your digestive tract. Infections can trigger the “bad” bacteria to take over those “good” bacteria. In this case, you may experience issues with digestion and breaking down food items, abdominal pain, and diarrhea. Vitamin B12 will help eliminate high levels of bad bacteria and give your healthy bacteria the nutrients it requires to flourish.

This vitamin can also help the body make digesting enzymes. These enzymes then assist in breaking down food items you consume. That means you’ll be able to get more nutrients from the food you consume. You’ll notice your energy levels improve when you incorporate an increase in vitamin B12 within your daily diet. It is also beneficial in controlling your body’s nerve function. This control that your nerve system performs could aid in stimulating your appetite. This, in turn, helps to promote good digestion.

Vitamin D

Vitamin D is naturally found in a handful of food items, and it’s included in many foods that we consume every day as a fat-soluble vitamin. When UV rays strike your skin via the sun, it triggers the natural vitamin D-producing response within your body. However, this isn’t enough, and many people resort to taking vitamin supplements to achieve the amount they need.

Vitamin D is anti-inflammatory and aids in bone strength and growth, and regulates the growth of cells. Foods with a significant quantity of Vitamin D are fish, fortified milk, orange juice, pork eggs, mushrooms, and various varieties of margarine. Since vitamin D isn’t present in an abundance of food items, it’s one of the harder nutrients for healthful digestion to obtain by eating a diet on its own.

How Vitamin D Supports Gut Health?

It also has potent anti-inflammatory effects that can aid those with chronic intestinal inflammation or system-wide inflammation, such as those who suffer from IBS and Leaky gut syndrome. Vitamin D can locate the cause of inflammation and assist in eliminating it. In addition, it may also aid in calming it down. Nervous system reaction that causes inflammation in the initial place.

A healthy amount of vitamin D in your body can trigger it to produce defensins. Defensins are antimicrobial molecules. They are crucial in keeping a balanced and healthy amount of bacteria within your digestive tract. If you lack enough of this antimicrobial molecule in your body, it will be inconsistent between beneficial and harmful bacteria. You could experience more symptoms of diarrhea, discomfort, and low absorption of nutrients.

Best Vitamin for Gut Health 2022

Iron

Iron is a vital mineral easily discovered in your body in extremely tiny amounts. Iron is accountable for transporting oxygen from hemoglobin in your red blood cells to all across your body. It is also essential in helping remove the carbon dioxide in your blood. Insufficient iron could result in anemia.

Iron can be found in food items, but this might not be sufficient, particularly for women. If you’re having trouble getting enough iron, Iron supplements could be something your doctor may recommend you take every day. The foods high in iron include beef, liver, shrimp, eggs, lentils, brown rice, and peanut butter.

How Iron Supports Gut Health?

This mineral has potent anti-inflammatory properties and can ease any inflammation that you might experience in the digestive tract lining. The conditions that cause a leaky gut, like an iron deficiency or IBS, can trigger chronic inflammation. The inflammation may cause nausea, vomiting, and inadequate absorption of nutrients. Iron can help reduce inflammation and gradually begins to treat you both inside and out.

Iron can also fight the high amounts of bad bacteria and give the good bacteria that live in your gut a boost. If this occurs, it is when the gut bacteria gradually begin to return to normal levels. As your bacterial levels rise back to what they were intended, you’ll get better absorption of nutrients, less inflammation or discomfort, and a healthier digestive tract overall. You will likely experience an increase in energy levels too.

Zinc

Another important essential nutrient that is essential to remain well is zinc. Zinc is found within the cells of your body. The mineral serves various functions, such as aiding your immune system in fighting against the effects of viruses and bacteria, making sure you grow and develop efficiently, and helping your body create proteins and DNA.

Many people use supplements that contain the mineral to help them achieve the proper dose. But, many food items contain zinc in them, including almonds, lentils, corn, peanut butter, broccoli, and oysters.

How Zinc Supports Gut Health?

Zinc is a vital nutritional element that plays a role in strengthening your digestive tract’s liner. If you suffer from an insufficient amount of zinc, you’ll be left with the lining of your GI tract becoming thin or cracked. In this case, the nutrients and bacteria could pass through your damaged lining and trigger general inflammation. Zinc helps to promote healthy cell development. It’ll reach damaged parts of the intestinal lining and help speed up the healing process.

It also helps to modify the levels of bacteria within your digestive tract. This is fantastic news for those with a high level of zinc present in their body. But, if you suffer from a deficit, it may create an excess of harmful bacteria. They will thrive in an unbalanced GI tract while healthy bacteria struggle. An adequate amount of zinc can also encourage bacteria diversity within your gut. In turn, this could increase the activity of bacterial cells and better nutritional absorption.

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Selenium

Many people haven’t had the opportunity to learn about this mineral before; however, Selenium is a crucial nutritional element for overall well-being. Selenium is found in various foods, and it’s a mineral your body requires for proper functioning. It protects your cells from damage due to oxidation, boosts thyroid hormone metabolism, and helps promote DNA synthesizing.

As we have mentioned, you can get Selenium through your diet. But, the quantity of this mineral present in the following foods is contingent upon the amount of Selenium found on the ground or animals’ food sources. Selenium-rich food items include tuna chicken, pork beef, tuna, Brazil nuts, whole wheat pasta, shrimp, and tofu.

How Selenium Supports Gut Health?

Selenium acts as an antioxidant that aids in safeguarding the cells from damage caused by free radicals. Suppose you experience lots of stress in your life, or you are exposed to stress-related triggers such as smoke from cigarettes or other pollutants. In that case, it could cause excessive free radicals that can cause havoc in your gut which can trigger the process of oxidative stress. The stress of oxidative deterioration causes damage to healthy cells in your gut. This may cause ulcers, inflammation, and cracks in the intestinal lining.

Selenium also helps stop the compound NF-kB and stop it from activating interleukin-6 and TNF-alpha production. These are the things that trigger an inflammatory reaction within your digestive tract. Selenium is a natural remedy to control the inflammation process by stopping this cycle of events. When this occurs, the gut will slowly begin to heal.

Vitamin C

Also known as the sunlight, vitamin Vitamin C is a mineral that isn’t produced naturally; therefore, we must get it through our diets. Vitamin C’s main functions within our bodies are increasing collagen production to improve the skin and connective tissue, help replenish antioxidants, and aid with protein metabolism.

Since we cannot create this vitamin for digestive health, you’ll need to get it from foods or supplements. Foods that contain a significant amount of vitamin C are citrus fruits such as oranges, broccoli, green peppers, tomatoes, winter squash, pineapple, and watermelon.

How Vitamin C Supports Gut Health?

This vitamin is crucial to help the body absorb iron from the foods you consume. It accomplishes it by decreasing the number of iron inhibitors present in your body, like phytates and tannins, and increasing your cells’ receptivity to the iron in the GI tract. As a result, the body can absorb the maximum amount of iron it can from everything you consume. This will prevent the body from becoming anemic and improve your body’s energy levels.

Vitamin C can also aid in the healing of cells by cutting down the damage caused by free radicals in the tissue lining the digestive tract. It promotes antioxidant renewal, and antioxidants help protect your cells against further damage caused by oxidative stress. This will help reduce any fissures or cracks that you could suffer from in your intestinal lining and help ease any inflammation you might be suffering from in your body.

Magnesium

Magnesium is found in dietary supplements, foods, and certain medicines. Magnesium plays a crucial role in the health of your bones, in the production of energy, in regulating the digestive system, and in improving the amount of stomach acid that resides within your digestive system.

Even though you have moderate amounts of magnesium within your system, you’ll look for foods with the highest levels or take supplements to maintain your grades. The foods that contain greater magnesium levels include spinach, almonds, soy milk, whole wheat bread, oatmeal, kidney beans, and bananas.

Magnesium’s Benefits to Gut Health

One thing magnesium can aid in improving your gut health is help your muscles along the digestion tract to ease. If this happens, the food in the GI tract of your body will begin to flow faster and more regularly. It won’t cause the usual abdominal pain or discomfort resulting from being a victim of too much food getting backed up within your digestive tract.

Additionally, magnesium can aid in balancing the acidity of your stomach. This is a great benefit for those who suffer from chronic acid reflux or GERD. It functions as an anti-inflammatory that is natural and will slowly decrease the number of stomach acids produced by your body if you are experiencing consistent mineral levels. Once your acid levels are checked, your inflammation and damaged cell count will decrease. This could lead to a reduction of symptoms.

Why Gut Health is So Important?

The pioneer of modern medicine, Hippocrates, stated that “all illnesses begin within the gut” hundreds of years ago, which is valid even today. The most important system in your body is your digestive system. You’ve probably been familiar with the Low-FODMAP Diet 1. , which is a great way to balance your microbiome.

The microbiome of your intestine comprises trillions of microorganisms and their genetic material within the intestines of your body. The organisms, also known as “gut bugs,” play a role in numerous bodily functions. They play a role in metabolism, digestion, weight management, and immune functions.

Healthy Foods to Improve Your Gut Health

There is a variety of healthy foods that you can consume to nourish your digestive system. We recommend filling your kitchen with

  1. Cultured drinks (kombucha)
  2. Cultured food (live yogurt and Kefir)
  3. Bone broth
  4. Fermented foods (miso, kimchi, sauerkraut, pickles, pickled vegetables)
  5. Fruits with low-fructose (pineapples and blackberries), strawberries and limes, lemons, Rhubarb, and avocado)
  6. Low-fructose vegetables (asparagus and leafy greens, mushrooms, celery the, white potato, spinach, and peas)
  7. Organic and natural foods that are not processed (Bananas)
  8. Foods high in fiber (Whole grains crackers)
  9. Healthy fats (Canned salmon)
  10. Probiotics and prebiotics

Concluding the Best Vitamin for Gut Health

These seven vitamins and minerals to improve gut health provide many health benefits if you’re getting adequate amounts. It doesn’t matter whether you consume supplements or receive them from your diet; so long as they’re present in your system, you’ll begin to notice the improvement in any health issues you might be suffering from. It’s always important to consult your doctor if you have any questions or concerns before making major dietary modifications.

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How to Get Better Gut Health: An Ultimate Guide 2022

Scientific Studies and References
  1. National Institutes of Health
  2. Holick MF. Evidence-based D-bate on health benefits of vitamin D revisited. Dermatoendocrinol. 2012 Apr 1;4(2):183-90. doi: 10.4161/derm.20015. PMID: 22928075; PMCID: PMC3427198.
  3. Harvard School of Public Health
  4. Healhline