The 'Healthy' Habits That Might Be Eroding Your Gut Lining
Rachel Carbone MS, BCDNM, LMT
When we think about wellness, we often focus on clean eating, regular workouts, and healthy lifestyle choices. However, some well-intentioned routines and common habits, ranging from intense physical training to everyday medication use or dietary choices, might actually place stress on our intestinal barrier. Understanding how these practices affect your gut lining can help you make informed adjustments for long-term health.
1. Acute Strenuous Exercise
Exercise is a cornerstone of physical health, but pushing your body too hard can have temporary, unintended effects on your digestive tract. A systematic review and meta-analysis evaluating indirect markers of gut damage found that acute intense exercise increases permeability in healthy humans, showing moderate-to-large effects for both permeability and gut damage (Chantler et al., 2020). Furthermore, performing high-intensity exercise in hot environmental conditions can worsen this damage (Chantler et al., 2020).
2. Restrictive or Low-Fiber Diets
Adopting restrictive eating patterns can lead to dietary deficiencies, which can wreck havoc on your gut. Restrictive diets, low in fiber in particular, can inadvertently starve the beneficial microbes that help protect your digestive system. A lack of dietary fiber leads to substrate switching, forcing the gut microbiota to consume host mucin O-glycans as an alternative carbon source instead of dietary polysaccharides (Glover et al., 2022); (Melhem et al., 2021). In animal models, fiber-deprived diets directly induce mucus layer erosion, downregulate MUC2 production, and promote the selective expansion of mucin-degrading bacterial populations (Melhem et al., 2021).
3. Frequent Use of Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs)
Reaching for over-the-counter pain relievers to manage everyday aches and pains is a widespread habit, but conventional NSAIDs can be harsh on the gut lining. Human reviews indicate that increased intestinal permeability occurs within hours after ingestion of virtually all conventional NSAIDs (König et al., 2016); (Chen et al., 2025). In clinical settings, approximately 60% to 80% of individuals on regular NSAID therapy develop barrier disturbance or inflammatory enteropathy (König et al., 2016); (Chen et al., 2025).
Protecting your digestive health requires looking at the full picture of your daily habits and routines. By balancing exercise intensity, ensuring an adequate intake of fermentable fiber to support your mucus barrier, and being mindful of medication use, you can better support a resilient intestinal lining.
References
Chantler, S., Griffiths, A., Matu, J., Davison, G., Jones, B., & Deighton, K. (2020). The Effects of Exercise on Indirect Markers of Gut Damage and Permeability: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Sports Medicine, 51, 113–124. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-020-01348-y
Chen, L., Tang, J., Xia, Y., Wang, J., & Xia, L.-N. (2025). Mechanistic study of the effect of a high-salt diet on the intestinal barrier. Scientific Reports, 15. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-88291-y
Glover, J., Ticer, T., & Engevik, M. (2022). Characterizing the mucin-degrading capacity of the human gut microbiota. Scientific Reports, 12. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-11819-z
König, J., Wells, J., Cani, P. D., Garcia-Rodenas, C., MacDonald, T., Mercenier, A., Whyte, J., Troost, F., & Brummer, R. (2016). Human Intestinal Barrier Function in Health and Disease. Clinical and Translational Gastroenterology, 7. https://doi.org/10.1038/ctg.2016.54
Melhem, H., Regan-Komito, D., & Niess, J. (2021). Mucins Dynamics in Physiological and Pathological Conditions. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 22. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms222413642