Our Gut, It’s Affect on Our Health, & How We Can Improve It.
Every year more is learned about the human body and every year we have more tools to become a little bit healthier.
One area that has continued to gain more and more interest is how the health of our gut can impact our overall health.
Chronic inflammation is the primary driver of diseases like heart disease, cancer, stroke, Alzheimer's, diabetes, and kidney disease. These are 5 of the top 10 leading causes of death in America and accounted for 51.7% of death in America in 2020.
One of the biggest drivers of chronic inflammation is our diet. The Standard American Diet contains high amount of processed meats, processed sugars, and processed grains. We know this diet leads to higher rates of heart disease, cancer, stroke, Alzheimers, diabetes, and kidney disease. 1
When we add more fruits, vegetables, and fiber rich foods to our diet our gut's health improves and we see decreases in signs of inflammation and disease. When we add fermented foods to our diet our gut's health becomes more diverse and we also see lower levels of signs of inflammation and disease.
Increasing the amount of fiber through increasing the amount of vegetables, fruits, and whole grains we eat has the potential to not only decrease systemic inflammation but also change the trajectory of the course of diseases over an individual's life. Increasing the amount of fermented foods one eats may play a crucial role in adding needed diversity to the gut microbiome and decreasing chronic inflammation, one of, if not the primary driver of death and disease in the United States.
While there is a lot more research to be done on the gut and fermented foods and adding fiber to the diet we know adding more fiber rich foods to the gut is good for our health and we know adding fermented foods to our diet is good for our health, to what extent though is still up for debate.
If you're looking to add fiber or fermented foods to your diet there are some things you should be aware of. Specifically, if you are currently eating very low amounts of fiber and/or fermented foods.
If you're an individual that typically follows the standard American Diet your gut's microbiome is most likely a little depleted and not very diverse. 2,3. This means most likely it will take the body a little bit of time to get used to the addition of fermented foods or fiber. For some individuals this “Getting Used To Phase” results in a little bloating and some stomach discomfort.
If you look below here is a graphic that shows how they performed the study when it comes to introducing more fiber and fermented foods into the diet.
The part noted C, shows how individuals increasing their fiber intake increased their fiber intake by a small amount the first two weeks than doubled that amount the next two weeks followed by maintaining the high amount for 6 more weeks. The same was done in the fermented group, D.
One of the reasons this was done was because adding fiber and fermented food to the diet can sometimes cause bloating due to the introduction of new foods and bacterias and the change of the composition of the gut microbiome. By slowly increasing the amount of fiber and fermented food it allows the body more time to adapt and allows the gut microbiota to slowly change.
When it comes to increasing your fiber intake foods that contain the biggest bang for their buck when it comes to good sources of fiber are mainly your leafy greens, vegetables, and fruit. You can check out more about the benefits of fruits and veggies in one of our previous blogs here.
When it comes to increasing your fermented food intake there are dozens of options but the ones listed below are ones you can typically find in your local grocery store. If you are going to pick up fermented foods from your local grover you’re going to want to check out the refrigerated section. If they’re not in the refrigerated area they’ve most likely been pasteurized or sterilized and don’t contain the healthy bacterias that benefit our gut.
Kombucha
Yogurt
Kefir
Kimchi
Miso
Sauerkraut
However, some fermented foods, especially if you’re working to get to 6+ servings a day, can get pretty expensive. Luckily many fermented foods are easily made. A quick google search of “make your own _____, kombucha, kefir, kimchi, etc.” and you’'ll be able to find many different resources if you’re interested in making your own.
If you’re looking for more resources on health and the gut here are some below.
Podcast: Interview With Neuroscientist Andrew Huberman & Dr. Justin Sonnenburg on How to Repair, Maintain, & Repair Gut Health. Link
Book: The Good Gut: taking Control of Your Weight, Your Mood, and Your Long Term Health. Link
Harvard Health Fermented Food Article. Link
I hope you enjoyed this article and as always if there is a health topic you’d like covered feel free to contact me here.
-Dr. Jake
References
Lynch, S.V., and Pedersen, O. (2016). The human intestinal microbiome in health and disease. N. Engl. J. Med. 375, 2369–2379.
Liu, L., Wang, S., and Liu, J. (2015). Fiber consumption and all-cause, cardio- vascular, and cancer mortalities: a systematic review and meta-analysis of cohort studies. Mol. Nutr. Food Res. 59, 139–146.
So, D., Whelan, K., Rossi, M., Morrison, M., Holtmann, G., Kelly, J.T., Shana- han, E.R., Staudacher, H.M., and Campbell, K.L. (2018). Dietary fiber intervention on gut microbiota composition in healthy adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 107, 965–983.
Wastyk HC, Fragiadakis GK, Perelman D, Dahan D, Merrill BD, Yu FB, Topf M, Gonzalez CG, Van Treuren W, Han S, Robinson JL, Elias JE, Sonnenburg ED, Gardner CD, Sonnenburg JL. Gut-microbiota-targeted diets modulate human immune status. Cell. 2021 Aug 5;184(16):4137-4153.e14. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2021.06.019. Epub 2021 Jul 12. PMID: 34256014; PMCID: PMC9020749.