Dr. Paul Deglmann
Meghan Feir Walker
When you’re having an allergic reaction, your first thought might not be, “How can I improve my gut health?” but it’s something important to consider. Gut health and allergies are closely connected. Your gut and the state of your microbiome play a huge role in immune system regulation, and when things are off, it can cause you to develop allergies and have more intense reactions.
Can allergies affect your gut health?
Can allergies affect your gut health? Absolutely.
Whether it’s an allergic response to the environment, food, or animals, inflammation from an allergic response can disrupt the gut lining or alter microbiome balance.
The gut has a barrier that protects us from the outside environment. If this barrier breaks down or is compromised, bigger gaps form in between the cells and sometimes through the cells. This is known as intestinal permeability or leaky gut.
When the gut lining is damaged, this allows toxins, microbes, food proteins, and environmental antigens to leak through the gut into the bloodstream. This then causes the immune system to react by creating inflammation, which can lead to allergies.
How gut health influences allergic responses
The gut-allergy axis
The microbiome also plays a huge role when it comes to generating an appropriate immune response. A healthy, diverse microbiome trains the immune system to tolerate the outside world, which means you aren’t reacting and are able to enjoy being outside, being around animals, and eating the foods you love. However, if beneficial bacteria become depleted, the immune system shifts toward creating inflammation.
The gut plays a huge role in your immune health, and 70-80% of the immune system resides in the gut. This is why the gut can be involved with so many issues linked to inflammation, including allergies.
When the gut barrier is healthy, the only things that are allowed to pass from the gut into the bloodstream are:
- Vitamins
- Minerals
- Amino Acids
- Fatty acids, including short-chain fatty acids (SCFA)
- Electrolytes
- Water
- Glucose, fructose, and galactose (monosaccharides from carbohydrate digestion)
When the immune system is chronically overstimulated, this can negatively impact gut health.
This immune activation can be stimulated by the following:
- Foods that the immune system perceives as a threat
- Environmental toxins
- Microbes like bacteria, yeast, and parasites
- Environmental antigens such as mold, grasses, trees, pollen, ragweed, cats, dogs, etc.
It’s a vicious cycle. Leaky gut can lead to inflammation, overactivation of the immune system, and allergic responses. These responses can then negatively impact gut health, which can further increase the immune activation.
Gut health in early life
From day one of your life, your microbiome begins being formed, and it can impact how your immune health is activated for years, even the rest of your life.
Many factors tie into how gut health is established in infancy. For example, having to be on antibiotics from an early age can impact immune function later in life. Having a C-section can affect a baby’s microbiome.
However, it’s important to keep in mind that many of these situations are unavoidable, so this isn’t intended to guilt parents into feeling badly! Sometimes things don’t always go the way you want them to, and we have to clean up the aftereffects the best we can.
Here are some factors that could negatively impact gut health early on in life:
- C-section birth
- Antibiotic exposure
- Toxin overload
- Eating a processed diet
- Being fed formula
- And other factors
Allergies are more likely to occur in babies and children whose microbiomes aren’t well-balanced. But there are always things a person can do to try to help rebalance the microbiome and establish good gut health.
What deficiencies might contribute to seasonal allergies?
Having low amounts of the commensal/keystone bacteria (probiotics) in your microbiome can contribute to allergies.
Alongside that, nutrient deficiencies can play a big role in the development or exacerbation of allergies as well. The following nutrients are a few key players in immune system function.
- Vitamin D
- Vitamin C
- NAC
- Glutathione
- Zinc
- Vitamin A
- Quercetin
- Omega-3 fatty acids
- Amino acids
- And others
Can probiotics and prebiotics help with allergies?
What the research suggests
While some probiotics may support immune balance and help reduce allergy discomfort, this question is unique to each individual patient. The answer varies from one person to the next due to several factors.
If you have extremely low beneficial bacteria in the microbiome, which is contributing to inflammation, then improving the beneficial flora will likely have a positive result. But you need to know which bacteria you need more of, so it’s not just a shot in the dark.
Probiotics are like placeholders in the gut. We also need to make sure that you have good prebiotics coming in through diet or supplements to feed the beneficial bacteria and encourage diversity within the microbiome.
Sources of probiotics, prebiotics, and polyphenols
With a gut-healing diet, the goal is to eat foods that can contribute to healing the gut and avoid the foods that can compromise gut health.
Some of our favorite foods for natural gut support include foods that are organic and full of fiber, prebiotics, probiotics, and polyphenols.
While your diet should be personalized, and any dietary changes should be made under the supervision of your practitioner, here are some good sources of probiotics and prebiotics that can help rebalance your microbiome.
High-fiber/prebiotic-rich foods:
- Asparagus
- Peas
- Onions
- Leeks
- Garlic
- Bananas
- Dandelion greens
- Jerusalem artichokes
- Apples
- Avocado
- Cabbage
- Chicory root
- Konjac root
- Burdock root
- Jicama root
- Cocoa
- Flaxseeds
- Seaweed
- Nuts
- Other fruits and veggies
Polyphenol-rich foods:
Polyphenols are a group of plant-based compounds that serve as a prebiotic in the gut. They stimulate gut bacteria and can be fermented by gut bacteria, which can increase the beneficial bacteria in the microbiome.
- Berries: Blueberries and strawberries have antioxidant properties
- Green Tea: Contains catechins that are beneficial for gut health
- Dark Chocolate: Rich in flavonoids supporting beneficial gut bacteria
- Olive Oil: Contains polyphenols and healthy fats that help reduce gut inflammation
- Black tea
- Plums
- Cherries
- Black currants
- Apples
- Black olives
- Black tea
- Coffee
- Hazelnuts
- Pecans
- Turmeric
- Cloves
- Cinnamon
- Ginger
- Cumin
Please note: Grains, such as oats and wheat, are considered high-fiber foods and may support digestion and microbiome diversity in some people. However, we commonly remove grains from the diet when addressing gut health issues because they can be extremely inflammatory for certain patients.
Also, some patients have difficulty tolerating fiber or foods like onions and garlic, depending on the state of their gut. As always, talk with your healthcare practitioner to figure out what foods are best for you.
Fermented/probiotic-rich foods:
- Yogurt: Rich in probiotics that support beneficial gut bacteria
- Kefir: A fermented milk drink packed with diverse probiotics
- Kimchi: A Korean dish made from fermented vegetables, enhancing gut flora
- Sauerkraut: Fermented cabbage providing essential probiotics
- Kombucha: A probiotic-rich fermented tea that supports digestion
Please note: While high-fiber, fermented, probiotic-rich, and prebiotic-rich foods support microbiome health for many people, other patients, especially those with SIBO and MCAS/histamine issues, typically can’t tolerate high-fiber, fermented, and probiotic-rich foods well. This is why it’s important to test and consult with a functional medicine practitioner who can determine if these foods will help or negatively impact your condition further.
How to support gut health for allergy resilience
Diet and lifestyle
Dietary tips for gut health and allergies:
- Increase fiber/prebiotic intake with high-quality/nutrient-dense organic fruits, veggies, and legumes
- Eat foods high in polyphenols
- Incorporate fermented and prebiotic-rich foods
- Eat whole, single-ingredient foods that are nutrient-dense and organic as much as possible
- Eat grass-fed/pasture-raised meats, wild-caught fish, and organic/pasture-raised eggs
- Eat healthy oils/fats (avocado oil, coconut oil, olive oil, tallow)
- Avoid processed, GMO foods/grains, added sugars, seed oils, dyes, artificial sweeteners, preservatives, etc.
- Stay well hydrated by drinking filtered water
- Take time eating, chew your food thoroughly, and don’t eat on the run
Lifestyle tips for gut health and allergies:
- Exercise/move your body: Find the type of exercise or form of movement that your body tolerates best and do it consistently
- Daily sunshine
- Drink clean/filtered water
- Breathe clean air (get outside)
- Practice good stress-management strategies
- Get good, restful sleep (7-9 hours)
- Avoid eating late at night
- Try an elimination diet under the guidance of a practitioner
- Minimize any unnecessary use of antibiotics
Functional health approaches
One of the most important aspects of any lifestyle change is to know what your body uniquely needs. Working under a trained functional medicine practitioner to help you navigate what decisions are right for your body and unique situation through testing and personal history will be the most targeted and helpful approach toward healing. After all, what works for one person won’t work for everyone. This includes recommendations about eating fermented, high-fiber foods, which can be triggers for many people with gut health and allergy issues.
How Restorative Health Solutions can help with gut and hormone balance
At RHS, we take into account your history and symptoms, along with following the “Test, don’t guess” approach.
When it comes to the connection between gut health and allergies, we test both areas thoroughly. We consider food allergy/food sensitivity testing, toxin overload testing, nutritional deficiencies testing, and more.
After the results are in, we combine your history with your test results and put together a personalized protocol for you that includes dietary modifications, lifestyle adjustments, and an individualized supplement protocol based on the test results and your history. This is a very one-size-fits-one protocol, and this is where working with an experienced functional medicine practitioner can make all the difference.
Ready to support your gut and immune system? We can help
By learning more about your digestive and immune system health and the reasons they became imbalanced, you can take proactive steps toward enhancing your whole-body health and overall quality of life.
Are you ready to improve your gut health and allergies? Read more on our blog about gut health, or schedule your free 15-minute consultation with Dr. Paul to explore a personalized, functional approach for a helpful and effective path to recovery.
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