5 Things You Need To Understand About Gut Health

Gut health is the "BIG ONE" in functional medicine and health circles these days. We are hearing more and more about research and studies that prove to us how optimal gut health plays a huge role in the human body's overall wellness.

We've heard of the good bacteria we have inside the gut that needs to be present for optimal immune system functioning. We also heard about probiotics that we can "feed" into our gut in order to replenish what was depleted from long-term antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, oral contraceptives and steroids use.

With all this rich new information on the super immune boosting effects of probiotics, why then do we still see so many battle with viral or bacterial infections every now and then? Why are some individuals still struggling with their allergies and other health issues that develop because of poor gut health?

The answers will lie on the fact that though optimal gut health is important for immune functioning and overall wellbeing, we need to understand that there's more to gut health that just probiotic supplementation. Here are the five things you need to understand about gut health.

1- Gut microbiota changes rapidly based on diet.

Lawrence David, an assistant professor at the Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy at Duke University, explored in his latest research conducted with a team of colleagues and published in Nature, how diet alter the community structure and activity of microorganisms in our intestinal tracts. 

The scientists observed that the microbial activity in the study participant's gut showed differences between an animal-based and plant-based diet. They discovered that the gut microbiome can rapidly respond to altered diet, and various bacteria species shifted within a day after the food hit the gut. Even more, David added that the bacteria started to change their behavior after about three days on each diet. He said, "The kind of genes turned on in the microbes changed in both diets."(1)

2- A plant-based diet is the most beneficial diet for the gut microflora.

Dr. David J. Jenkins and peers from the Division of Endocrinology, Children's Hospital Boston, stated the following in their scientific review on gut microbiota, diet and heart disease.

"The gut microbiota of those consuming a Western diet are likely underutilized and depleted of metabolic fuels, resulting in a less than optimal gut microbial profile... While more research is required to clarify the potential link between gut microbiota and CHD risk reduction, consuming a therapeutic diet rich in plant foods, dietary fiber, and fermentable substrate would be a useful strategy for improving systemic health, possibly by altering the gut microbiota."

Nutrition and eating a more plant-based diet has been observed over and over again to be the best way to improve and maintain our gut health. No amount of probiotics will help if we continue to eat a Western diet which rapidly influences the microflora in the gut in a negative way. (2)

3- Prebiotics should play a vital role in managing and maintaining your gut's optimal health.

PREbiotics is the missing link in various optimal gut health pursuits of today. Most of us have forgotten how magnificently made the human body is and that it has been designed to do all the vital processes that maintain our optimum functionality, including the gut's ability to diversify its own gut microflora. 

Probiotics may help replenish the gut's microbiome, but without PREbiotics to feed these beneficial microbial community in the gut, our attempts to replenish with good probiotics will only become a waste of money if we neglect to provide them with the vital nutrition they need to thrive.

PREBIOTICS are generally the non-digestible polysaccharides and oligosaccharides found only in fruits and vegetables. They promote the growth of beneficial microbes in the gut and limits the proliferation of antagonistic, pathogenic microbes such as Salmonella sp. or E.coli. 

A peer review study showed PREbiotics having a positive influence on the gut-associated lymphoid tissues (GALT) and can modulate immune parameters at this level. The consumption of a PREbiotic-rich diet has also been reported to reduce the occurrence of preneoplastic lesions in the colon of rats treated with a carcinogen. Moreover, scientists observed the drug-like effect of lowering cholesterol levels and the reduction of cardiovascular disease and prevention of obesity with PREbiotics from a more plant-based diet.(3)

How do we make sure that we are getting proper PREbiotics? The recommended daily allowance for fruits and vegetables, which are the only sources of it, is about 7-10 servings on a daily basis. Keeping up with that recommendation will help you make available PREbiotics for your gut microbiota. (4)

4- Psychological Stress will wreck havoc on your gut microflora.

The gut is extremely vulnerable to chronic and acute stress. By design, there are many stress-induced changes that occur in the gut. These include changes in gastric secretion, gut motility, mucosal permeability and barrier function, visceral sensitivity and even mucosal blood flow. But, there is now also evidence that suggests stress to affect gut microbiota directly. This is due to a significant connection between the brain and the gut.(5) 

The intestinal mucosa has a network of nerve fibers and neuron cell bodies infiltrating it and they are influenced by signaling from the brain. In this sense, the human gut is an important part of the nervous system and many scientists currently coin the term "second brain" to pertain to the gut's nervous system role. 

Any kind of stress releases a family of peptides called corticotrophin releasing factors (CRF) which are responsible for the body's overall responses to stress. CRFs have a potent effect on the gut. They eventually modulate inflammation, which has been shown to actually cause changes in the composition of the gut microflora. Research in mice exposed to stress led to an overgrowth of certain types of bacteria while simultaneously  reducing microbial diversity in the colon.(6)

We cannot just take this aspect for granted because this is one area in a person's life that will either make or break one's optimal gut health.

5- Oxidative stress will affect your gut microbial community.

Oxidative stress is technically the "biochemical" stress from free radicals inside the body. These free radicals are generated by our body by various endogenous systems, exposure to different physiochemical conditions (for example, post working out) or pathological states. When there is an imbalance between the amount of free radicals in the body and that of antioxidant defenses, oxidative "stress" occurs.

A review update on the role of free radicals and antioxidant defense in human disease shows that a mounting clinical and experimental evidence indicates that free radicals play important roles in many physiological and pathological conditions.(7) Advancing research now shows an increasing evidence that genetics influence and interact with gut microbiota. Aging-associated oxidative stress cause morphologic changes in gut bacterial cells, influencing the virulence of pathologic bacteria.(8)

Thankfully, there is a proven factor that greatly reduces and keeps oxidative stress in check. Research now show the critical role that thousands of phytonutrients found in fruits and vegetables play in helping protect our bodies from oxidative stress and free-radical damage. (9) This is how important regular consumption of fruits and vegetables is to the human body. We have been designed to thrive better on a more plant-based diet, after all.(10)

Bridging the nutrition gap

Only about 5% of children in the U.S. today eat the recommended 7-10 servings of fruits and vegetables on a daily basis! This is a very disheartening picture of the health of the next generation. Even adults don't get their sufficient amount of fruits and vegetables regularly. There is a huge gap in the modern nutrition that our society is on today and this increases the risk to the development of modern health conditions that are brought about by a compromised gut health.

The way to bridge this gap is to either commit to eating 7-10 servings of a good variety of organic, raw fruits and vegetables daily or commit to a whole-food nutrition supplement that has been proven to significantly supply the body with the phytonutrients, micronutrients, and enzymes that allow for optimal gut health and overall well-being. To learn more about this, visit this link: www.sueedson.com


~~~~~~~~~
Sources:
(1) http://www.medicaldaily.com/gut-bacteria-rapidly-changes-diet-gut-microbiome-more-sensitive-previously-believed-264899, accessed on December 17, 2014.
(2) (n.d.). Retrieved December 17, 2014, from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22468338
(3) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3376865/, accessed December 17, 2014
(4) http://www.choosemyplate.gov/food-groups/vegetables-why.html, accessed December 17, 2014
(5) http://www.jpp.krakow.pl/journal/archive/12_11/pdf/591_12_11_article.pdf, accessed December 17, 2014
(6) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20941511, accessed December 17, 2014
(7) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10436261, accessed December 17, 2014
(8) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25291121, accessed December 17, 2014
(9)http://www.researchgate.net/publication/262112680_Postprandial_oxidative_stress_is_increased_after_a_phytonutrient-poor_food_but_not_after_a_kJ_matched_phytonutrient-rich_food, accessed December 17, 2014
(10) http://biblehub.com/parallel/genesis/1-30.htm