Gut Health and Immunity: How Your Microbiome Controls 70% of Your Defenses
About 70% of your immune system lives in your gut. Your microbiome trains immune cells, calms inflammation, and even signals your brain. When your gut breaks down, your defenses collapse. Here’s how to strengthen gut health and immunity and why the Gut Reset makes it simple.
Your Gut: The Real Immune Headquarters
I grew up with food insecurity. I didn’t grow up with kale salads and kombucha. And later in life, my body kept the score.
After my first baby, I suddenly became asthmatic and allergic to everything I’d grown up around: oak trees, pine trees, dust, Bermuda grass. And the bloated belly? That’s been with me my whole adult life, right along with the extra weight and constipation I thought were just “normal.”
Fast forward to my late 50s, when I tried Mounjaro. What was supposed to be a fix for my Hemoglobin A1C turned into a nightmare: twelve weeks of diarrhea, six months of gastroparesis where food just sat in my stomach fermenting and festering, and a 40-pound weight loss that stripped my muscle, tanked my electrolytes, and left me frighteningly sick.
Looking back, it’s obvious: my gut had been calling the shots all along. And when my gut collapsed, so did my immune defenses.
🦠 Why Your Gut Runs the Show
About 70% of your immune system is hanging out in your gut. Not in your lymph nodes, not in your arm waiting for a jab- right there in your belly.
Here’s what it’s doing at the cellular level (mental movie version):
- Training troops➡️ Your gut bugs are drill sergeants, teaching rookie immune cells how to tell friend from foe. Without training, your immune system either freezes or shoots at everything — including you.
- Fighting invaders➡️ Think neighborhood watch squad. Your good bacteria swarm intruders before your immune cells even arrive.
- Calming inflammation➡️ Picture a thermostat. Good microbes dial inflammation up or down so you don’t burn your own tissues.
- Talking to your brain and hormones➡️ It’s a group text. When the gut thrives, the messages are clear: “We’re good.” When it’s wrecked, the texts are scrambled and panicked. Your brain gets anxious, your hormones spin out, and your immunity tanks.
This isn’t trivia. This is the chain of command that keeps your body resilient.
