Microbiome

The Microbiome is the mix of bacteria, fungi, viruses and more that inhabit your digestive system. Think of it like the vital organ you never knew you had! It contains 35,000 known gut bacterial species and counting, weighs around 1kg and makes 36% of all the small molecules in your blood! 80% of your immune system is in your gut, because your body needs to keep that huge ecosystem in check.

We know from studies that people with particular diseases have a particular pattern of microbiome. For example patients with Multiple Sclerosis have a fairly consistent pattern of bacteria that unique to patients with MS. Obese people have a very different microbiome to skinny people. For weight loss to be sustainable, the microbiome needs to change. Studies have been done on twins – one obese, the other skinny. Researchers gave their stool to mice and fed them the same diet and exercise. The mouse that received the stool (so had some of the bacteria transferred) from the obese twin, became obese. The mouse that received the stool from the skinny twin stayed skinny. The reason is your microbiome processed the calories you eat, and some bacteria for example eat more of them, so you absorb less and vice versa!

The microbiome prevents bag bugs getting a foothold and works synergistically with out body. Mice that have had their microbiome wiped out (“Germ Free Mice”) have plasma serotonin levels 3x lower than conventional mice! The gut and brain are deeply connected! Have you ever been anxious and felt the need to go to the toilet? Our levels of stress affect the gut and vice versa. Have you ever felt emotionally down and craved junk food? Recent research has demonstrated that neurotransmitters like the “flight or fight” stress hormones play a significant role in gastrointestinal function. Norepinephrine, epinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin have recently been a topic of interest because of their roles in the gut physiology and their roles in gastrointestinal and central nervous system diseases like Parkinson’s and Inflammatory Bowel disease.

Your gut "enteric" nervous system has around 500 million neurons and produces half your body’s Dopamine and 90-95% of your serotonin! (A common anti-depressant drug is an SSRI – Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor that is designed to increase levels of this important chemical in the brain. Why not instead focus on where 90% is made, the gut?).

Specific types of probiotic bacteria can have very specific impacts on us. For example, Veillonella bacteria isolated from marathon athletes and given to mice increased their performances in treadmill tests by 13% compared to control bacteria. We know that diet and exercise are good for us, the mechanism is looking more and more like it has to do with the impact on our microbiome as much as the rest of us.

A different type of bacteria has been shown to dramatically improve diabetes (post prandial blood glucose, HbA1C, insulin and insulin resistance).

L.reuteri, yet another type of bacteria has been shown in studies to prevent weight gain when eating fast food. The probiotic changed the inflammatory response so the mice fed fast food and the probiotic stayed skinny where as those fed just the fast food became fat.

Another specific type of bacteria, Lactobacillus acidophilus, modulates cannabinoid receptors and reduces abdominal pain.

Firmicutes, another type of bacteria, eat resistant starch and make a substance called butyrate, which is the preferred fuel of the cells in our colon. Butyrate is also anti-cancer so incredibly important for our health.

If we have a problem in the microbiome, such as an unhealthy ratio of types of bacteria it’s called “Dysbiosis”. Many diseases are now linked to dysbiosis. For example some evidence suggests Parkinson’s disease begins in the gut.

The microbiome is shaped from the way we were born, whether we were breastfed or bottle fed,antibiotics we’ve had, the food we eat, our stress and other hormone levels and much more. Excitingly, we can change the microbiome quite quickly through diet and other interventions.

Studies have even shown that the microbiome has a major impact on our cognition, behaviour, social interacts and stress management.

Is it any wonder why so much research is currently being done on this frontier? We have evolved with a microbiome, it’s essential we take care of it, keep it healthy and eat to feed it correctly. At Evergreen Doctors we always consider the gut as so often it has a key role in the health challenges people have. Once the gut is healed and optimised, everything becomes easier to address.