Inflammation & Gut Health: Why the Road to Healing Starts in the Gut

Health Starts in Your Gut

Chronic inflammation is one of the most overlooked drivers of disease, and it often begins in the gut. From brain fog to autoimmune flares, poor sleep to skin conditions, inflammation is the common thread linking countless modern health complaints. At Next Health, we take a functional, root-cause approach to reducing inflammation, starting with the gut.

This guide explores how inflammation develops, why gut health is the body's control center, and the proven strategies that can help you reverse the cycle and optimize your long-term health.

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What Is Inflammation?

Inflammation is your body’s natural alarm system. It’s how your immune system responds to injury or infection. Think of it like a fire alarm: short-term inflammation (called acute inflammation) alerts your system to a problem and helps it heal.

But when that alarm keeps ringing without a clear reason, it turns into chronic inflammation—a slow, persistent internal fire that can silently damage healthy tissues over time.

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The Biology of Chronic Inflammation

Chronic inflammation begins at the cellular level. When your immune system is activated, it releases signaling molecules called cytokines to help fight off threats and repair tissue. In the short term, this response is protective. But when cytokine activity stays elevated for too long, it stops being helpful and starts breaking down healthy tissue instead.

Over time, this process disrupts normal cellular function, increases oxidative stress (a type of cellular wear-and-tear), and quietly fuels disease. The tricky part is chronic inflammation often simmers beneath the surface for years before obvious symptoms appear, which is why so many people don’t realize their fatigue, skin issues, or brain fog may be inflammation-driven.

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What Triggers Chronic Inflammation?

Inflammation isn’t always caused by something dramatic. Most triggers are actually part of everyday life:

• Processed foods, especially refine sugar, refined oils, and additives
• Poor gut health and microbial imbalance (dysbiosis)
• Chronic stress, anxiety, and poor sleep
• Environmental toxins from mold, plastics, or pollutants
• Lingering infections (like viruses or parasites) that the immune system hasn’t cleared

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The Gut-Inflammation Loop

Here’s where it all connects: chronic inflammation and gut health are deeply intertwined.

One of the first places affected by systemic inflammation is your intestinal lining—a thin but powerful barrier that decides what enters your bloodstream and what stays out. When this barrier becomes damaged, it can develop tiny gaps that allow toxins, bacteria, and undigested food particles to leak into your system. This is called leaky gut, or intestinal permeability.

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What Is Leaky Gut, Really?

Think of your gut lining like a coffee filter. It’s supposed to let nutrients through while keeping harmful substances out. But when that filter tears—even microscopically—things like pathogens, toxins, and food proteins can slip into your bloodstream. Your immune system flags them as foreign invaders, sounding the alarm and releasing inflammatory messengers.

This creates a vicious cycle:

• Inflammation damages the gut lining
• A weakened gut lets more particles leak out
• The immune system reacts, creating more inflammation
• And the cycle continues...

This process doesn’t just affect digestion, it can spark symptoms in every system of the body.

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How Inflammation Shows Up in Your Body

Inflammation doesn’t always scream for attention. More often, it whispers—and those whispers show up as everyday symptoms you may not associate with inflammation at all. Some of the main areas you can experience symptoms of inflammation:

• Brain: Feeling foggy, scattered, or irritable? Chronic inflammation can affect neurotransmitters, leading to brain fog, anxiety, and even depression.
• Skin: Conditions like acne, eczema, or premature aging often have an inflammatory root, especially when tied to gut issues.
• Joints: Achy, stiff, or swollen joints might not be “just aging.” Inflammation affects connective tissue and can make recovery feel slower.
• Metabolism: Weight gain that’s hard to explain? Inflammation can cause insulin resistance and slow your metabolism, even if your habits haven’t changed.
• Gut: Bloating, food sensitivities, constipation, or irregularity are often signs that your gut lining is compromised and inflamed.

These symptoms may seem disconnected, but the gut is often the common thread.

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The Gut: Your Body’s Control Center

Up to 80% of your immune cells live in your gut. That’s no coincidence. Your gut is home to a dynamic ecosystem of trillions of microbes—bacteria, fungi, viruses, even archaea—that form your microbiome.

When your microbiome is diverse and balanced, it works in harmony to help:

• Aid digestion
• Strengthen your gut lining
• Regulate mood and hormones
• Calm the immune system
• Reduce systemic inflammation

But when the balance is thrown off (a state called dysbiosis), your gut can become leaky, inflamed, and less able to protect you from internal stressors.

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Women, Hormones & the Gut

Gut health plays a powerful role in women’s hormonal balance, both during the menstrual cycle and at times of transition like perimenopause and menopause. Hormones like estrogen and progesterone fluctuate throughout the cycle, affecting gut motility, microbiome diversity, and the strength of the gut barrier. These shifts can heighten inflammation and contribute to symptoms like bloating, cramps, mood swings, and brain fog.

The gut even houses a collection of bacteria known as the estrobolome, which helps metabolize estrogen. When this system is out of balance, hormone regulation becomes harder, and symptoms that feel “just hormonal” may actually start in the gut. Supporting gut health is therefore key to easing menstrual discomfort, improving hormone balance, and promoting resilience through every stage of life.

Test your hormone levels and gut health biomarkers with our comprehensive Baseline Lab Test.

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A Functional Approach to Gut Healing

1. Remove the Root Causes

Functional biomarker lab testing takes out the guess work and helps identify root causes of gut dysfunction. Start with a comprehensive Next Health Baseline Lab Test to analyze over 50 biomarkers affecting your health. An expert Medical Provider reviews your results and creates a customized health plan to help address and heal imbalances from the root.

Depending on your results, your personalized plan may include guidance on:

• Cutting inflammatory foods: sugar, gluten, dairy, alcohol, seed oils
• Treating infections: candida, parasites, SIBO
• Reducing toxic exposures: mold, pesticides, plastics, synthetic fragrances

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2. Rebuild the Gut Lining

Using your unique biological data from functional lab testing, a Next Health provider curates a customized health optimization plan to target healing. Your personalized plan may include:

• IV Therapy to deliver gut-supporting nutrients straight into your blood stream
• Nutrition plan that prioritizes nutrient-dense, anti-inflammatory whole foods (wild-caught fish, leafy greens, bone broth)
• Supplement stack including prebiotics and probiotics
• Targeted peptides to support overall metabolic health
• Advanced wellness technology protocols to help reduce inflammation and support gut repair

Gain exclusive access to quarterly biomarker testing, provider-prescribed peptides, metabolic programs, exclusive pricing on select services, and more with a **Medicine 4.0 Membership.**

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3. Reinforce Long-Term Resilience

Daily lifestyle habits can go a long way to help reduce overall inflammation and support gut health.

• Practice stress-reducing habits (breathwork, meditation, time in nature)
• Prioritize sleep (7–9 quality hours per night helps reset your gut and immune system)
• Move daily: walking, yoga, and strength training all support gut function
• Limit micro-stressors from plastics, mold, and hormone-disrupting chemicals

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The Bottom Line: Start With the Gut

Whether you’re chasing more energy, a clearer mind, better sleep, or relief from persistent symptoms, start by supporting your gut. Your gut health impacts your digestion, and has a profound influence on overall inflammation, immunity, hormones, and how you age.

When you heal the gut, everything else starts to shift.

Explore how Next Health can help you reduce inflammation and reclaim your vitality.

Join as a member to start your personalized, data-driven wellness journey.

Your longevity starts in the gut. Let’s heal it together.

Originally published on April 10, 2025. Updated with new information on September 29, 2025.