Your lifestyle makes you on average 3x more likely to develop IBS/SIBO if you fall into these following groups. Sedentary habits, irregular meal spacing, high stress, poor hydration and drinking all raise your odds, often drastically.
What Lifestyle Factors Raise Your Risk of IBS and SIBO?
Your lifestyle makes you on average 3x more likely to develop IBS/SIBO if you fall into these following groups:
- Those with a sedentary lifestlye were shown to have drastically slower transit times and overall a 3.6x higher odds of developing IBS
- Those who spaced meals irregularly had a 3.19x higher risk on average of IBS, likely due to decreased transit time and increased fermentation in the small intestine. Space your meals regularly and avoid snacking where possible
- Those with high stress levels and anxiety were 2-3x more likely to have IBS, now it's very likely the correlation is inflated as most stress is CAUSED by the gut. But still living a lower stress lifestlye often leads to less incidence of gut issues.
- Drinking water regularly is seen as important for overall health, but in the gut it can make the difference between healthy stools and constipation. constipation = fermentation = IBS/SIBO
- Drinking regularly obviously has a massive correlation with gut issues due to it's effects on motility, gut lining health and therefore secretions. Interestingly enough drinking periodically seems to fine in moderation.
TLDR; Get up and move, Space your meals 5 hours apart, Avoid stressful lifestyles where possible, Hydrate properly (eat your hydration too) and don't be down the pub twice a day.
GutMaxxing is a lifestyle not just a supplement stack.
Why Does Eating Late Increase Bacterial Overgrowth Risk?
Well you can digest somewhat during your sleep sure, but the difference is number one is it degrading your sleep quality and two is it effecting how long food sits in your intestines, which it does drastically. which means more fermentation. which means potentially more bacterial overgrowths.
I'd also see sleep as the time of day where your body is meant to run natural cleaning cycles on the gut, food disrupts this too again likely leading to higher incidence of overgrowths.
You can read more about how meal spacing interacts with gut motility and how the biggest levers to pull relate to treating SIBO at home.
What Should You Actually Do About These Risk Factors?
Don't stress, Don't spend every second worrying about your gut, Don't become autistic like I did and spend 100's of hours researching.
