5 gut-friendly foods to keep your digestive system healthy and happy
How to lower the risk of stomach, bowel and colorectal cancers, plus boost your brain activity. Bonus
You may think you can eat anything and not have to worry about possible negative effects on your health. It's true that most people in their late teens and early 20s have incredibly fast metabolisms, and don’t have to work that hard to work off the calories.
But weight considerations, or protein-loading are not the only concerns when it comes to food. Each year, the World Gastroenterology Organisation looks at a particular illness that affects our digestive health. For 2019, it focused on gastrointestinal (GI) cancers – cancers that happen in the digestive system. Four of the seven most common cancers affect this part of the body, according to the World Cancer Research Fund’s global cancer statistics for 2018.
For many years, diseases such as bowel cancer were thought to only affect old people. But a recent study in Europe, using data from more than 143 million people, found a rise in cases of bowel cancer between 1990 and 2016, with the biggest increase in people aged 20-29. Another study found a similar trend among young adults in wealthy countries like Britain and Australia.
While you may not be able to prevent GI cancers, there are plenty of studies that suggest healthier eating can lower the risk.
What’s more, by keeping our guts happy, we can make our brains happier, too.