Importance Of Gut Health

We talk to Dr Elizabeth Biggs about the importance of gut health, and how she went from practising Western medicine to co-founding a Singapore-incorporated probiotic company.

- Amy Greenburg

Gut health wasn’t a “thing” 20 years ago when Elizabeth was studying medicine at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. Though the link between gut health and mood has certainly been known for some time, it’s only in recent years that researchers have really begun to understand how much of an impact a healthy digestive system can have on one’s overall wellbeing.

“It’s really a new frontier, much like the revolution around the human genome,” says Elizabeth. “To consider that the microbial world that resides on us and within us has impacts far beyond the gut wall is really quite staggering from a medical perspective. This is an incredibly exciting area, not only for the researchers in the field, but also for the implications for clinical medicine.”

She says that, while Western medicine traditionally approaches the body from a pathological viewpoint and considers the body in distinct organ systems, Eastern medicine takes a more holistic approach, viewing the body as a whole and the interconnections between body systems.

“Modern medicine has an incredible arsenal at its disposal, which is life-saving. But, we need to do more to stay healthier for longer,” she says. “We need to ask more why questions and target lifestyle and diet to help prevent ill-health.”

A personal health journey

It’s these “why” questions that got Elizabeth interested in exploring a more holistic approach to health. She was struggling with chronic migraines, recurrent yeast infections and poor concentration, and needed answers. Her instinct told her it was diet-related and, after conversations about gut health with her doctor and a lot of research, she decided to make some changes.