Did you know there are more bacteria your body hosts than it's own human cells???
We call this the microbiome. Its a colony of good and bad bacteria and other microorganisms that fluctuate daily depending on how you eat, drink, exercise, and rest. Whether our body hosts more of the good or bad "gut bugs" indicates if your body is disease prone or in a healthy state. The microbiome is in charge of not only helping our body absorb nutrients, but also helps immune function, metabolism, and brain function!
Here are some ways to sway your body into balance with feeding and growing your good microbiome community so you can live your best life now!
1. Fiber Up!
Fiber feeds the good microbiome and decreases disease. Where can you find fiber? Only in plants: fruits, veggies, nuts, seeds, legumes, grains. Choosing produce that was recently picked will contain more nutrients and local bacteria to help boost your own gut microbiome. Organic food has not been found to contain more nutrients but does contain less pesticides/herbicides. An easy way to save money and get the nutrients without the pesticides is to follow the Environmental Working Group's (EWG) yearly list of produce with the least and most pesticides so that you can buy "clean" foods at non-organic prices and the "dirtiest" produce organic.
2. Eat the Rainbow
By rotating the type of produce you eat by color, you maximize the diversity of your microbiome. According to the American Gut Project which sampled over 11,000 participants globally found that plant diversity was key to microbiome diversity. Participants that ate 30 different types of plants per week had more robust guts than those eating 10 different types or fewer. It seems the more diverse you can eat, the more your body benefits. An easy way to get started on diversifying your gut is by simply buying multiple colors of produce.
3. Hydration
Not only does drinking adequate water aid in nutrient absorption and microbiome stability but when talking about quality of water we can also find an impact on our microbiome health. Let's count our blessings and acknowledge how great it is to have clean drinking water. However, technology can also come with consequences. Chlorine, fluoride, lead, fertilizer, excreted medications and other contaminants in the water can alter or kill our microbiome. While "the dose makes the poison," when it comes to purifying the water in water plants, safe levels of contaminants authorized by state or the Safe Drinking Water Act are often above updated scientific literature for those contaminants. The EWG also has a site that consumers can check their local water reports and compare them to updated safety guidelines. If your area has items of concern, home water filtrations through carbon filters or reverse osmosis would be suggested.
4. Exercise
Exercise has a profound ability to diversify the good bacteria in the gut, even with mild changes in healthy eating habits. However, the more someone exercises the more their gut benefits. One study suggests women who exercised 10 hours a week compared to those that exercised 30-minutes, 3 days a week showed significant differences in the bacteria that controls body fat verse muscle composition. Another study indicates that aerobic or endurance based exercise (walking, running, cycling, skiing, etc.) for longer distances is better at creating compounds that heal the gut lining than strength based exercise (weight lifting, sprinting, boxing, etc.). A healthy mixture of strength and endurance activity is recommended for better gut diversity!
5. Unwind & Relax
You don't need to be on vacation to have lower stress. Try exercise, reading, being outdoors, visiting friends, sit in silence, color, make organization lists, or treat yourself to the spa. High stress levels and anxiety don't just affect your brain, they lower good bacteria in our gut. To just "relax" is easier said than done though. Research finds when we eat high fiber foods, those fibers are able to feed our good gut bacteria and produce serotonin (our "feel good" neurotransmitter) and GABA (our "relax" neurotransmitter) for the brain to stabilize mood. 80-90% of our body's serotonin and is produced directly by the gut! BUT only when fed fibers from plant based foods. The beneficial microbiota will also increase the amount of GABA receptors in the brain, allowing you to have neurological relaxation at its finest.
6. Sleep Deep
Our microbiome "gut bugs" have a circadian rhythm (internal clock) just like our brain. When well balanced they help produce melatonin (sleep neurotransmitter) from the foods we eat. When the gut is out of balance, the bad microbes disrupt the sleep cycle and a catch-22 occurs where a lack of sleep also stunts good microbe growth. To top it off, a high fat diet strongly impairs growth of good gut bugs and circadian rhythm where a high fiber diet was associated with deeper, longer sleep; ketogenic diets (high fat) were also associated with insomnia. Creating good sleep hygiene is important to combine with a high fiber diet to optimize sleep outcomes; see the resources on sleep hygiene provided by the American Alliance for Healthy Sleep for more info.
7. Avoid Gut Busters
Lets touch on some obvious and not so obvious anti-health habits that inhibit good gut bug survival. Alcohol and medications, whether over the counter or prescribed can diminish good gut bug colonies. Talk to your doctor if you regularly take antibiotics, opioids, acid blockers, steroids, acetaminophens, or NSAIDs. Antibiotics are also found in meat and dairy products as means of sanitation standards set by the FDA. A huge gut bug disruptor that most are unaware of are animal products in general - meat, fish, dairy, eggs. Nutrition Facts is a great resource for deep diving into the reasoning behind how animal products putrefy in the gut and diminish the good (plant) fiber fueled microbiota. On that site you can also see how processed food and added salt, oil, or sugars impairs the microbiome.
8. Bonus Round
A mention should be made about buzz word supplements or foods like probiotics and fermented foods. In most cases these forms of health are merely neutral when it comes to actually improving our microbiome when compared to the vastly greater impact actual plant fiber has on restoring our gut balance. Studies find that they can help but that eating far outweighs adding small amounts of "boosters" to the diet. Not to mention our gut already ferments food as we eat and creates its own "probiotics" (literally making/growing good biota in our gut). If someone is very ill and needs a boost these may come in handy. Unless you are trying to replenish your gut balance after an antibiotic treatment in which case, taking probiotics was actually found to SLOW the growth of good bacteria in the gut compared to not taking the probiotic. That shocked the world. Keep watching these areas because science will continue to be back and forth on recommendations. My opinion would be use them if you want, but do not depend on them or feel forced to eat them daily.
For a truly healthy gut and especially to restore a gut that has been compromised by disease, a high fiber, diverse plant food diet is the best way to optimize your health today. Every meal and every bite counts to replenish the good or promote the bad. You have to decide how comfortable you are with your current state of health, including if you are a health nut who longs for optimal performance. A healthy gut impacts every area of our lives: brain function, metabolism, hormone balance, immunity, and the list continues as science discovers more about our microbiome.
If anyone wants to learn more about these or other gut promoting, life healing changes contact me, Dr. Shannon Stigall, at https://www.phytophysio.com/ .
My passion is whole food, plant-based eating to improve the gut and blood flow. This is the secret to decreasing inflammatory pain, recovering faster, and improving heart and brain function. No matter the age or level of athlete performance.
Put it to the test and I guarantee you will see results.
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