How to take care of your microbiome?
Microbiome is important element of body health. Inappropriate diet and lifestyle higher the risk of many disease like obesity, diabetes type 2 or autoimmune diseases. Use infromation from this post to restore your microbiome to good condition.
In recent years, the concept of the microbiome has gained huge attention. Scientists provide evidence that a balanced microbe is important for human health. Bacteria in your gut are responsible for proper functioning of many procceses.
Neglect of it can cause diseases like diabetes type 2, skin problems or depression. In this article I learn you how to take care of your microbiome.
After reading you will know:
Role that bacterias play in our bodies
What food is beneficial for microbiome
Why you should experiment with food
What products are harmful for microbiome
Why our gut flora isn’t diverse enough
Table Of Content
1. Role of Microbiome
To show you how to take care of your microbiome, it is important to know the role it plays in the body. The digestive system is home to trillions of bacteria, viruses, and fungi.
Scientists estimate that there are 35,000 species of microorganisms. Almost 70% residing in the large intestine. The large intestine is a harsh place to live; it is like a huge boiler where millions of bacteria try to survive.
Bacteria prefer different nutrients; some prefer sugar while others prefer fats. What is more important, every type plays a different role
Main Role
Decide how much energy you get from food
Regulate work of immune system
Transform food into hormones, vitamins or chemical compounds
Turn on inactive polyphenols into their active forms
Protect us against bacteria
Maintain barrier inside digestive system in good condition
Produce short chain fatty acids from indigestible carbs
Why Short Chain Fatty Acids Are Important?
They are available only in small quantities in products we eat. We can find them in milka and butter. SCFA are important because:
They are responsible for 5-10% of the daily energy provided by the diet
They serve as a fuel for cells lining the intestine
Play important role in protection against large intestine cancer
2. brain in gut
Everyone has in gut as many neurons as cat in his brain. These huge amount of neurons forming what we call enteric nervous system.
We can compare it to command centre. It operates independently from brain to some point. Our second brain is always connected via vagus nerve with main brain.
Our second brain decides about:
Movement of digestive system
Amount of gastric acid that is neccesary to release
Release of hormones
Proper communication with immune system
3. Diversity is a key
Diverse microbiome is important to have healthy gut. We don’t want to have too many bacteria of one kind. We can compare this situation to economy.
If one company is too big, it can set the price on very high level. In this situation everyone need to pay because of no alternative. The same situation can occur in our gut.
How Bacteria Control Us?
One type of bacteria that overgrown is capable to influence our mood, dietary habits or behaviour. They use sophisticated methods like:
Modifying nerve signals
Changing taste buds
Emiting toxins that make us feel sick or angry
I hope my reasons convince you to eat food that heal microbiome. I present full list of them in next paragraphs.
4. What destroy your microbiome?
Since the Industrial Revolution we have changed how we live. We improved medicine, comfort of living, technology and way more. We can assume that every change was beneficial for health. As we found out in a moment it isn’t true.
Few changes that we made in diet in the past, make us sick today. Most of them are easy to remove from your life. My goal is to show you how to take care of your microbiome by implementing easy changes in lifestyle and diet.
DIET
Do you know that humans eat less than 250 species of plants from 200 000 that are ingestible? What is more terrifying 75% of dishes
is make from 12 species of plants and 5 types of animal. It is one
of the reasons why our digestive systems aren’t diverse enough.
Eating different plants and animals is one of the simplest way to have new types of bacteria.
Next time:
Add to shopping basket vegetable you have never tried
Change type of meat in your favourite dish
Try different types of one vegetable
Do you know there is a few thousand types of tomato? You can spend half of your life only on trying new tomatoes.
ANTIBIOTICS
Antibiotics are relatively new invention. They were first invented in 1928 by Alexander Fleming. It was groundbreaking invention that saves life of milions. However we use it too often now.
Nowadays doctors prescribe them even for normal cold. Human body in most cases is strong enough to heal cold without antibiotics. Food industry use antibiotics heavely on industrial farms. They feed animals with them. Final result is that we consume meat full of antibiotics.
How Antibiotics Effect Gut?
Increase production of sialic acid. Pathogens are more willing to live in gut flora with higher levels of sialic acid.
Antibiotics destroy „bad” bacterias and „good” bacteria.
Antibiotics can decrease bacterial flora about 25%
Short after using them body is more susceptible to infections
REMEMBER
Use antibiotics only in neccesary situation
Eat probiotics during antibiotic therapy
EMULSIFIERS
Emulsifiers are widely used in processed food. Producers use them to get desirable consitency or protract expire date. They add them even to products that don’t need emulsifiers.
Problem with these substances is that they make your gut flora less diverse. Emulsifiers make digestive system favourable for bacteria that attack mucosa layer of intestines.
ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS
Artificial sweeteners are more and more popular but I show you they aren’t better than sugar
Substitutes for sugar can cause glucose intolerance. Experiment conducted on Weizmann Institute test influence of artificial sweeteners on mouses. Animals which get water with sugar substitute suffered from glucose intolerance. Scientists found in their gut bacteria associated with obesity and diabetes.
Brain connects sweet flavour with energy. Artificial sweetener doesn’t have calories so you cheat your brain. You fulfill lack of energy by eating 30% more calories than using sugar.
aIR POLLUTION
New studies show that air pollution influence state of your microbiome. Air pollution refers to gases and particular matter. Scientist assume that these small particles intoxicate food we eat.
Food full of toxins damage gut and increase risk of disease when it find a way to bloodstream. Experiments conducted on mouses show that chemicals change diversity and composition of microbiome. As we found out earlier diverse microbiome is healthy.
5. How to Repair Microbiome?
PROBIOTICS
Probiotics-products that are rich in specific types of bacterias like Lactobacillus or Bifidobacterium.
Examples of probiotics:
Kefir
Homamade yoghurt
Kimchi
Sauerkraut
All types of fermented food
Benefits of fermented food
Increased level of short chain fatty acids
Decreased level of disease-causing bacteria
Stronger barrier in gut
Increase level of white blood cells especially T-cells
PREBIOTICS
In simple words prebiotic is food for bacteria in your intestines. Even bacteria won’t survive without food so nourish them with prebiotics.
They like indigestible fibers like inulin or resistant starch. Both substances are present in vegetables and seeds like:
Onion
Garlic
Leek
Peas
Beans
Sunchoke
SYNBIOTICS=PREBIOTIC+PROBIOTIC
We can benefit more by using synbiotics. We know that probiotics are full of beneficial bacteria and prebiotic is food for them. We can use this knowledge to grow good bacteria in more efficient way.
EAT MORE
Olive oil
Fatty fishes like salmon, tune or trout
Cocoa in pure form or in dark chocolate without free sugar
Eggs
AVOID
Products rich in sugar result in blood sugar spikes after intake. High level of glucose increase inflammation in every part of your body. Inflammation in digestive system enable toxins to go through protective barriers. In long run it can result in development of allergy ore autoimmmune disease.
Processed food full of sugar, trans fat or food additive
WAYS TO IMPROVE GUT HEALTH
Intermittent fasting is a reduction of time when you eat or
calories you eat. No matter what form you select it will help your microbiome. One type of bacteria love when you fast. They protect our intestines walls from invasion of „bad” bacteria. Intermittent fasting also enhance anti-aging processes in body.
Exercises with healthy diet will always be positive for our well-being. Every type of exercise is better than sitting.
Mitigate stress in your life to make your gut healthier. When your sleep is poor, your body produce more hormone that signalise hunger. After sleepless night it is more probable that you eat fast food than healthy meal.
Reduce stress to sleep better. Find the best methods for you. There is a lot of option to choose like meditation, emotional freedom technique or accupressure mat.
Outdoor activities like gardening can increase diversity in your digestive system. Our world is full of microorganisms around us that we can’t see. Contact with nature expose us to them. Furthermore contact with nature reduce stress so spend more time outdoor.
6. How to test your Microbiome?
Everyone can test your microbiome. We can use Simpson Diversity Index to check how diverse is our microbiome.
In the internet there is a few companies that can test your microbiome. One of the most popular is uBiome. Data from the
test enable you to know how to take take care of your microbiome
in more precise and efficient way.
7. Summary
The most important information to remember about how to take care of your microbiome:
You have bilions of bacteria in your digestive system. They play great role in proper functioning of body
Squad of your microbiome isn’t constant. You can change it with diet and lifestyle
Unhealthy habits results in more ,,bad” bacteria
Processed food, poor diet, antibiotics and pollution decrease diversity in gut
Eat more fermented food, prebiotics to repair your microbiome
Intermittent fasting, regular exercises and less stress will also be favourable for you
Show your friends how to take care of your microbiome and enjoy healthier life
8. Sources
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com
[3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
[5] „the clever guts diet” by Michael Mosley