Herbs for Cleansing Your Gut: Natural Detox to Improve Digestion

A healthy gut is essential for overall well-being, and detoxifying it naturally can enhance your digestive health. Using herbs like Dong Quai, Triphala, and Astragalus, you can cleanse your gut, boost nutrient absorption, and strengthen your immune system. While some believe in regular gut detoxes for optimal health, the evidence supporting their effectiveness is still limited.

Nonetheless, maintaining gut health through natural methods remains a proactive way to support your body’s overall wellness. For more detailed insights on how these herbs can benefit your digestive system, check out our full guide on natural gut detoxification and maintaining a healthy gut.

What is Gut Health?

Your “gut” is your gastrointestinal system consisting of your stomach, your colon, and your intestines. It’s responsible for absorbing nutrients from food, and keeping it healthy means it can continue to efficiently absorb the useful nutrients and excrete the unneeded parts of foods.

To be considered healthy, a gut needs to host a diverse range of bacteria. While you probably hear the word “bacteria” and have negative associations, there are actually over 200 different types of helpful bacteria that can live in your gut and help it do its job by breaking down foods.

There are also harmful bacteria that can live in your gut, though. Occasionally purging the unhealthy bacteria via a gut detox is another way to maintain a healthy gut.

Importance of Gut Health for Detoxification

A healthy gut is the body’s natural detoxification system. Think about it: your gastrointestinal system is meant to absorb all the healthy nutrients you consume while flushing all of the toxic ones, which is exactly what detoxification diets and cleanses aim to do, too.

Studies show that having a healthy gut is an essential part of making a detox strategy effective [1]. If a detoxer has an unhealthy gut, their body won’t be able to make good use of the sparse nutrients they consume and the whole detox will be a waste.

Read more: #25 Podcast – Gut Health

Benefits of Detoxing the Gut with Herbs

Over thousands of years, humans have discovered a variety of herbs that promote gut health. Maintaining a healthy gut by consuming the herbs and going on the occasional gut detox helps the body function more efficiently [2], [3], [4]. For example, a healthy gut:

Supports digestive health

A healthy digestive system brings a lot more benefits than you might think, from preventing upset stomach to results you wouldn’t expect like improved mood and better sleep [5].

Eliminates toxins

A healthy gut means more efficiency in flushing out the toxins present in modern-day processed foods. Those toxins can result in bad moods, brain fog, and even skin problems, so going without them will make you feel better all-around.

Boosts nutrient absorption

A healthy gut will amplify the effects of any healthy foods you consume. It’s always a good thing to consume foods rich in vitamins and minerals, but you’ll get even more out of them if your gut is healthy.

Reduces inflammation

Maintaining a healthy gut reduces the inflammation we experience from consuming processed foods.

In the short term, inflammation from processed foods can make you feel sluggish and bloated. Over the long term, it can lead to diabetes or heart disease.

Enhances immune function

Simply put, a healthy guy will help you keep from getting sick.

Promotes a healthy gut microbiome

A healthy gut microbiome reduces the risk of serious diseases in the long term. For example, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and obesity can often result from an unhealthy gut microbiome.

Improves energy levels

A healthy gut will also help your body to efficiently derive energy from the calories you consume. The energy boost you’ll feel from a healthy gut will likely keep you feeling alert throughout the day.

Helps with weight management

Being able to expel nearly 100% of the useless material you put in your body will help you to lose weight.

Reduces bloating and gas

A healthy digestive system runs like a well-oiled machine, and it is no surprise it won’t cause problems like upset stomach, bloating, or gas nearly as often.

Supports overall wellness

Nearly every facet of your health will likely be improved with a healthy gut, as food and the nutrients contained within are the fuels that make every part of our bodies run properly.

Read more: Low Carbohydrate Diet? It May Be Affecting Your Gut Heath

Top Herbs for Gut Cleansing

The most effective herbs for initiating a gut detox and bringing about all the health benefits mentioned above are:

Dong Quai Tea

This one is especially popular with women, and it is sometimes even called “the female ginseng” [5].
Benefits include:

• Relieves menstrual and menopause symptoms 
• Strengthens bones
• Balances hormones
• Eases colds, congestion and fever
• Regulates blood pressure and heart health
• Helps calm nervous stomachs
• Can act as an aphrodisiac 
• Can help reduce mood swings 
• Can help improve blood circulation

Triphala

Triphala is a powdered mixture of three ayurvedic herbs:

1. Amla, a rejuvenating fruit.
2. Bihitaki, a powerful anti-inflammatory.
3. Haritaki, which is often referred to as the “king of medicines” in Ayurvedic manuals.

Triphala strengthens and nourishes the bones, nervous system and reproductive organs.

Poria

Poria has been used for hundreds of years in Japan and China, where it goes by the name Fu Ling [6], [7].

Effects of Poria include:

• Immune function support
• Reduced inflammation
• Promoting digestive health
• Combatting stress, anxiety and depression
• Anti-inflammatory can help skin disease such as psoriasis and is well known among Chinese women to improve skin condition. It is applied topically
• Anti-diuretic
• Helps with digestive problems such as diarrhoea, constipation, acidity and other gastrointestinal issues.
• Helps with insomnia, anxiety, depression
• Good for kidneys, spleen, liver
• Modulates immune system
• Eliminates excess fluid

White Peony

Another gut detox herb popular with women, white peony [8]:

• Improves menstrual conditions 
• Helps with anxiety and depression
• Can help treat women’s condition –polycystic ovary syndrome, premenstrual syndrome (PMS), and for starting menstruation
• Improves blood flow 
• Has blood thinning properties
• Aids kidney health
• Helps support liver and spleen function  
• Helps with respiratory tract illness and cough
• Can heal cracked skin and haemorrhoids
• Can help reduce excessive sweating

White Atractylodes

The powder from white atractylodes is a powerful gut detox herb for anyone, traditionally being used to treat both physical and mental fatigue [9]. It also:

• Promotes digestion and helps with bloating 
• Improves mental performance 
• Lowers blood sugar
• Help with diarrhoea, quells nausea
• Helps with spleen deficiency
• Can combat mental fatigue

Astragalus

Astragulus is perhaps the strongest gut detox herb when it comes to strengthening the immune system [10]. It also helps with:

• Combatting inflamation
• Antioxidant Activity
• Heart Health
• Longevity
• Energy Boost
• Stress Relief
• Liver Protection
• Diabetes Management
• Kidney Health
• Respiratory Health
• Cancer Prevention

We also offer a digestive support alchemy tonic supplement that combines these gut detox herbs and more.

How to Use Herbs for Gut Cleansing

Most of the gut detox extracts mentioned above have a subtle bitter and earthy taste that goes great in teas, smoothies, or other hot beverages.

Triphala has a sweeter, fruitier taste than the other herbs on the list, so it is better when added to fresh juice. For more suggested uses, read our post on the top 6 ways to use Triphala.

In any case, these gut detox herb extracts are very potent, especially when bought from Shoku Iku. Because of that, you only need to add a very small amount – usually, less than a teaspoon. Check the individual product page to find out exactly how much you need to use.

Maintaining Gut Health After Detox

Have you ever gotten your house or car cleaned and it looked so good afterward that you resolved to take extra-good care of it afterwards? Well, you should treat your gut the same way after detoxing it!

Make sure to eat a healthy diet, get enough sleep, stay hydrated, and get in plenty of cardio to maintain your healthy gut.

Reference:

1. Strand J. (2022). Distinctive Detoxification: The Case for Including the Microbiome in Detox Strategy. Integrative medicine (Encinitas, Calif.), 21(4), 26–30.
2. Hu, Q., Zhang, W., Wu, Z., Tian, X., Xiang, J., Li, L., Li, Z., Peng, X., Wei, S., Ma, X., & Zhao, Y. (2021). Baicalin and the liver-gut system: Pharmacological bases explaining its therapeutic effects. Pharmacological research, 165, 105444. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.phrs.2021.105444
3. Vita, A. A., McClure, R., Farris, Y., Danczak, R., Gundersen, A., Zwickey, H., & Bradley, R. (2022). Associations between Frequency of Culinary Herb Use and Gut Microbiota. Nutrients, 14(9), 1981. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu14091981
4. Vorobjeva N. V. (2005). Selective stimulation of the growth of anaerobic microflora in the human intestinal tract by electrolyzed reducing water. Medical hypotheses, 64(3), 543–546. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mehy.2004.07.038
5. Zhang, Z. W., Han, P., Fu, J., Yu, H., Xu, H., Hu, J. C., Lu, J. Y., Yang, X. Y., Zhang, H. J., Bu, M. M., Jiang, J. D., & Wang, Y. (2023). Gut microbiota-based metabolites of Xiaoyao Pills (a typical Traditional Chinese medicine) ameliorate depression by inhibiting fatty acid amide hydrolase levels in brain. Journal of ethnopharmacology, 313, 116555. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jep.2023.116555
6. Ye, H., Ma, S., Qiu, Z., Huang, S., Deng, G., Li, Y., Xu, S., Yang, M., Shi, H., Wu, C., Li, M., Zhang, J., Zhang, F., Qin, M., Huang, H., Zeng, Z., Wang, M., Chen, Y., Lin, H., Gao, Z., … Gao, L. (2022). Poria cocos polysaccharides rescue pyroptosis-driven gut vascular barrier disruption in order to alleviates non-alcoholic steatohepatitis. Journal of ethnopharmacology, 296, 115457. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jep.2022.115457
7. Yu, J., Hu, Q., Liu, J., Luo, J., Liu, L., & Peng, X. (2022). Metabolites of gut microbiota fermenting Poria cocos polysaccharide alleviates chronic nonbacterial prostatitis in rats. International journal of biological macromolecules, 209(Pt B), 1593–1604. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2022.04.029
8. Chen, L., Kan, J., Zheng, N., Li, B., Hong, Y., Yan, J., Tao, X., Wu, G., Ma, J., Zhu, W., Sheng, L., Chen, L., Li, B., Zhong, J., Du, J., & Li, H. (2021). A botanical dietary supplement from white peony and licorice attenuates nonalcoholic fatty liver disease by modulating gut microbiota and reducing inflammation. Phytomedicine : international journal of phytotherapy and phytopharmacology, 91, 153693. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.phymed.2021.153693
9. Fu, G., Zhou, Y., Song, Y., Liu, C., Hu, M., Xie, Q., Wang, J., Zhang, Y., Shi, Y., Chen, S., Hu, J., & Sun, Y. (2023). The effect of combined dietary supplementation of herbal additives on carcass traits, meat quality, immunity and cecal microbiota composition in Hungarian white geese. PeerJ, 11, e15316. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.15316
10. Song, B., Li, P., Yan, S., Liu, Y., Gao, M., Lv, H., Lv, Z., & Guo, Y. (2022). Effects of Dietary Astragalus Polysaccharide Supplementation on the Th17/Treg Balance and the Gut Microbiota of Broiler Chickens Challenged With Necrotic Enteritis. Frontiers in immunology, 13, 781934. https://doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2022.781934