Your gut does more than just digest food—it plays a crucial role in your immune function, mental health, and overall well-being. With trillions of bacteria living in your gastrointestinal tract, maintaining a balanced gut microbiome is essential for whole-body health. When the quality of bacteria is off, it leads to an unhealthy gut that presents a wide range of health issues, from digestive symptoms to autoimmune conditions and even mental health disorders.
But how do you know if your gut is out of balance? Here are the common signs of an unhealthy gut—and what you can do to restore it.
1. Digestive Issues: Your Gut’s First Warning Sign
Abdominal pain, bloating, gas, or acid reflux, are signs of a digestive health issue caused by an unhealthy gut. Your gut microbiome plays a vital role in processing foods and maintaining a healthy gastrointestinal tract. When there’s an imbalance, harmful bacteria can take over, leading to digestive discomfort and potential issues like irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) or inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
If you experience frequent bloating, loose stools, constipation, or abdominal pain, your gut is likely struggling to process food efficiently. Poor digestion is often a sign of an imbalanced gut microbiome—and an overall unhealthy gut—where harmful bacteria outweigh healthy bacteria.
Signs Your Gut Needs Help:
- Upset stomach after eating
- Chronic bloating or gas
- Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) symptoms
- Recurrent diarrhea or constipation
How to Fix It:
- Increase fiber-rich foods like plant-based foods, whole grains, and unprocessed foods to support a healthy gut microbiome
- Consume fermented foods (if tolerated) to introduce beneficial bacteria into your digestive system
- Reduce common trigger foods like processed sugars and unhealthy fats that feed damaging bacteria
- Consider stool tests to identify underlying issues like inflammatory bowel disease, ulcerative colitis, or food sensitivities
2. Skin Issues: The Gut-Skin Axis Connection
Your gut health and skin health are directly linked through the gut-skin axis. When bad bacteria outnumber helpful gut bacteria, it can trigger inflammation, leading to skin irritation, acne, rosacea, eczema, and other skin conditions—and these are often signals of a struggling or unhealthy gut. Improving the diversity of bacteria in your gut may help reduce these inflammatory skin issues that arise from an unhealthy gut.
Signs an Unhealthy Gut is Affecting Your Skin:
- Persistent acne or breakouts
- Skin conditions like eczema, psoriasis, or rosacea
- Unexplained skin redness, irritation, or dryness
How to Fix It:
- Support gut health with gut-friendly foods that reduce inflammatory responses, such as bone broth, fiber-rich foods, and probiotic-rich foods
- Reduce refined sugar and processed foods, which feed damaging bacteria that impact skin health
- Optimize your digestion with essential vitamins like zinc, vitamin A, and short-chain fatty acids, which support skin barrier function
- Work with a medical professional to assess potential food intolerances or nutrient deficiencies linked to poor gut health
3. Unintentional Weight Gain or Loss
Gut bacteria play an active role in obesity, metabolism, and nutrient absorption. An unhealthy gut microbiome may lead to weight gain, difficulty losing weight, or fluctuating weight. Certain bacteria are linked to how our bodies process food, store fat, and manage blood sugar levels. Keeping a healthy gut microbiome can support healthy weight management and make or break your fitness efforts.
Signs Your Gut is Impacting Your Weight:
- Unintentional weight fluctuations
- Difficulty losing weight despite a healthy diet
- Increased sugar cravings
- Feeling full too quickly or always feeling hungry
How to Fix It:
- Eat a balanced diet rich in healthy bacteria to regulate metabolism and improve blood sugar levels
- Avoid amounts of sugar that disrupt the gut microbiome and contribute to inflammation and fat storage
- Consider elimination diets to identify common conditions that could be affecting metabolism
- Improve your circadian rhythm by focusing on sleep hygiene, since lack of sleep increases cravings and impacts hormone levels
4. Chronic Fatigue & Mental Health Concerns
Feeling drained, foggy, or emotionally off-balance—despite doing everything “right”? The answer might lie deeper than your lifestyle habits. Your gut and brain are in constant communication through the gut-brain axis, an intricate network that links your digestive health to your mental well-being, mood stability, and energy levels.
An unhealthy gut can have ripple effects far beyond digestion. The bacteria in your gut help regulate neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine—essential chemicals for mood, focus, and motivation. When your gut isn’t functioning properly, you may start to feel persistent fatigue, mood swings, anxiety, or even symptoms of depression. Over time, the imbalance of an unhealthy gut can leave you feeling stuck in a cycle of exhaustion and mental fog, despite getting enough sleep or eating a clean diet.
Signs Your Gut is Impacting Your Mental Health & Energy:
- Persistent fatigue, even with plenty of sleep
- Frequent headaches or brain fog
- Mood disorders like anxiety and depression
- Increased stress levels and difficulty managing emotions
How to Fix It:
- Support your gut with a healthy balance of anaerobic gut bacteria that produce bile acids to aid with digestion and energy production
- Reduce chronic stress, which disrupts gut bacteria and contributes to systemic inflammation
- Prioritize quality sleep since poor sleep disrupts gut bacteria diversity and hormone balance
- Work with a gut health specialist to assess whether gastrointestinal disorders could be contributing to mental health issues
5. Weakened Immune Function & Autoimmune Disorders
Did you know that over 70% of your immune system is in your gut? If you’re frequently getting sick or finding it hard to recover from common colds, this could be due to an unhealthy gut. The diversity of bacteria in your gut helps regulate immune function, and an imbalance can lead to an overactive immune response or a weakened immune system. This increases your risk for infections and autoimmune diseases like celiac disease, inflammatory bowel disease, and rheumatoid arthritis.
Signs Your Gut is Affecting Your Immunity:
- Frequent colds, infections, or slow healing
- Autoimmune disease flare-ups
- Chronic joint pain and inflammation
- Food allergies and sensitivities
How to Fix It:
- Reduce bad diet choices that contribute to chronic inflammation and an unhealthy gut
- Incorporate a variety of microorganisms through fermented foods and diverse plant-based foods to strengthen the gut
- Avoid trigger foods that cause immune responses, including highly processed foods
- Consider functional lab testing to evaluate levels of stress, inflammatory markers, and bacterial balance
6. Food Intolerances & Sensitivities
Not all reactions to food are immediate—or obvious. Unlike food allergies, which trigger rapid immune responses, food intolerances, and sensitivities can cause delayed symptoms that are harder to identify. These hidden triggers often lead to chronic inflammation, digestive distress, fatigue, skin issues, and even mood swings, all of which can worsen over time if left unaddressed.
When your body struggles to break down certain foods, it can cause imbalances in your gut microbiome. Over time, this disrupts digestion, weakens immune responses, and contributes to systemic inflammation, affecting your overall well-being. These factors stemming from an unhealthy gut and can manifest into worse symptoms when left untreated.
Signs You May Have Food Intolerances or Sensitivities:
- Digestive discomfort after eating certain foods (bloating, gas, cramping)
- Brain fog or sluggishness after meals
- Chronic fatigue without a clear cause
- Cravings for specific foods that could be causing inflammation
- Unexplained skin issues, such as breakouts or irritation
How to Fix It:
- Functional lab testing can reveal hidden food sensitivities that traditional allergy tests often miss
- Temporarily remove problematic foods and slowly reintroduce them under expert guidance to determine your body’s unique triggers
- Incorporate gut-friendly nutrients, like L-glutamine, probiotics, and anti-inflammatory foods, to heal the digestive tract
- Focus on diversity by eating a variety of fiber-rich and plant-based foods to support beneficial gut bacteria
Personalized Advice Can Make or Break Your Gut
KOI Wellbeing offers a naturopathic approach to gut health, combining food sensitivity testing and personalized nutrition guidance to identify and address imbalances. Through expert insights, we’ll help you understand the root cause of your symptoms and solve an unhealthy gut, whether they’re related to food allergies, digestive issues, or even chronic fatigue.
Here’s how we support you:
- Comprehensive Food Sensitivity Testing: Discover potential food sensitivities that may be triggering your symptoms.
- Targeted Nutritional Guidance: Work with our team to develop a diet that supports a diverse and healthy gut microbiome.
- Lifestyle Recommendations: From sleep hygiene to stress management, we’ll provide guidance on all aspects of health that impact gut balance.
By addressing these issues and amending an unhealthy gut, you can experience more consistent energy, better digestion, improved mental clarity, and relief from skin issues and immune challenges.
Take the Guesswork Out of Gut Health
You wouldn’t shoot darts with your eyes closed—so why guess when it comes to your health? Your gut is the foundation of your well-being, influencing digestion, metabolism, skin health, immunity, and even your mood. Ignoring the warning signs of an unhealthy gut can keep you stuck in a cycle of frustration and discomfort.
It’s time to get clear answers.
Functional lab testing goes beyond surface symptoms to uncover the root causes of your health concerns—whether it’s nutrient absorption issues, food sensitivities, or microbial imbalances. With real data, we can create a personalized roadmap to help you restore balance, boost energy, and feel your best.
Don’t keep guessing—take control of your health and start healing from the inside out.
Book a gut healing consultation at KOI Wellbeing today!
