The Best Gut Health Books
Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body’s Most Underrated Organ by Giulia Enders
This book is a great intro to how the gut works and why it matters. It takes us down the journey of eating food to expelling it out the other end, and all with a bit of humor along the way. If you’re just getting into this and can’t stomach the idea of reading a hard science or diet book, this is a great place to start. Enders also gives us some insight into the importance of gut health and how it relates to a whole host of health problems along with a few tips to make your gut a bit happier.
The Microbiome Solution by Dr. Robynne Chutkan
The Microbiome Solution, written by leading gastroenterologist Dr. Robynne Chutkan, exposes how many of the aspects of modern life, such as antibiotics, have systematically contributed to the destruction of the millions of bacteria that we need to be healthy. Dr. Chutkan presents research that shows how this could be related to a whole host of modern ailments. She also presents a powerful and easy to follow three-step plan for improving your gut health. It starts with avoiding antibiotics, eating whole foods, and not being afraid of dirt! This book is especially useful to those struggling with intestinal issues or other health problems.
The Macrobiotic Path to Total Health by Michio Kushi and Alex Jack
The Macrobiotic Path to Total Health is part self-help and part encyclopedia of how to treat over 200 different ailments. The book goes into the theories of why gut health is so important but includes a slightly more spiritual bent. Michio Kushi and Alex Jack discuss the power of the yin and yang energies in the body and how these balancing energies interact with the food we eat. This book is great if you’re looking for a way to reframe the way you think about food and eating and don’t want to dive into the stereotypical “diet” culture. It is also unique in the way that it addresses individual health problems and provides recommendations for each in turn.
The Good Gut by Justin and Erica Sonnenberg
The Good Gut takes a deep dive into the science of the microbiome and the ways in which our gut health can affect every aspect of our lives from physical health and weight to overall mood and lifespan. This book also provides a guide for creating a health plan based on the science presented and includes recipes and meal plans. This is a nice hybrid option if you want to learn a bit about the theory behind these diets and also get some ideas for how you can improve your gut health in a practical way. While the book does address and talk about how gut health can affect weight, the focus is not so much on weight loss, but overall health. For some, this might affect weight, but the goal is to improve gut health for a healthy happy life!
Healthy Gut Cookbook by Gavin Pritchard and Maya Gangadharan
This gut health book is great if you’re looking for a practical guide for how to eat your way to a healthier gut. It includes more than 100 different recipes for yummy, gut-friendly foods. Pritchard and Gangadharan also provide some context for why the recipes are effective, the stages you can expect as you go through the process of healing your gut and recommendations for supplements to take along with the healthy gut diet.
The Mind-Gut Connection: How the Astonishing Dialogue Taking Place in Our Bodies Impacts Health, Weight, and Mood by Emeran Mayer
This book focuses in on the way that our gut, and the bacteria living there, communicate with our brains and affect our overall mood and health. The Mind-Gut Connection focuses less on how to change your diet to heal your gut (though there is some of that in there) and more on the science behind how and why these two complex biological systems communicate and how it affects us. He talks a lot about the way that gut health impacts our mood and also how the brain listens to the gut in stressful situations.
Healthy Gut, Healthy You by Dr. Micheal Ruscio
Healthy Gut, Healthy You helps you craft a personalized plan to heal your gut. Dr. Michsel Ruscio first explains his theory behind gut health, and how modern antibiotics and diet have been destroying the bacteria that live there. He then walks you through an optimum diet for restoring gut health, tools for healing your gut, and recommends the lifestyle that is going to be ideal. He also provides an eight-step action to get you on the right path. This book focuses on improving gut health to help improve energy, skin, joints, metabolism, sleep, and general mood!
Eat Dirt: Why Leaky Gut May Be the Root Cause of Your Health Problems and 5 Surprising Steps to Cure It by Dr. Josh Axe
Dr. Josh Axe goes deep into the way that society produces and consumes food and explains why many of the modern advancements in food production have caused so many health problems. He explains the concept of the “leaky gut” and how to heal it by essentially getting a little dirty—reconnecting with the earth and eating whole foods not touched by pesticides. He then identifies the five different types of cutes and provides customizable plans to address each different issue. We hope that our selections of gut health books give you a bit more insight and help you find the right book to achieve your healthiest gut yet. It is a fascinating topic and one that deserves digging into, because an unhealthy gut can have wide-ranging effects on overall health. Find even more books on health and medicine here.
