BY TAMARA VON ESTORFF

Burlington residents gathered at Nature’s Emporium for an educational health seminar last week.  

Holistic registered nutritionist and VITALITY Representative Amanda Santalucia hosted a Heal Your Gut For Good workshop that hauled in a crowd of people. 

The presentation included information on the importance of gut health, associated risk factors, provided tips on how to improve your gut through diet and exercise, and how to treat diseases such as iron deficiency, IBS, and other chronic illnesses.

“Gut health is an extremely important topic that is often overlooked and it tends to be the root cause of a lot of conditions,” says Santalucia. “If our gut is imbalanced, it throws off our hormones, sleep, cravings, and our whole digestion in general.”

VITALITY is an award-winning Canadian health line that offers supplements that are organic, gluten-free, non GMO certified, and vegan. Some of the products include Power Iron+Organic Spirulina, Super Multi+, B60 Complete+C, Digest+, and Relax+.

One of the most important topics discussed during the seminar was the connection between the gut and the brain.

“The brain and the gut communicate with each other through your vagus nerve,” says Santalucia. “This motive communication is what controls our sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, which triggers a stress hormone called cortisol,” she says. “If the communication is thrown off, that causes issues with that fight or flight response, and that parasympathetic nervous system is not activated.”

Ninety-five per cent of serotonin and dopamine is produced and stored in your gut.

“Serotonin and dopamine are your happy hormones,” says Santalucia. “When you’re having stomach pain or nausea, it can cause you to get in a bad mood and throw off your day,” she says. “That’s because the serotonin and dopamine are not being produced in the way they should be.”

Some other factors that affect gut health include nutrition, environment, water consumption, exercise (whether too much or too little), medication, and substance use.

So how do we fix these issues? By following the Four R’s: Reduce (reducing amount of caffeine, alcohol, sugar, processed foods, etc), Replace (replace unhealthy foods with healthier alternatives), Repair (repair by using VITALITY vitamins to lower symptoms) and Replenish (replenish by using probiotics).

For more information on Santalucia and her services, subscribe to her blog. To learn more about events, visit Nature’s Emporium website and check out the events calendar.