Fiber and Your Microbiome — DietConnectionBlog

Sep 16

Sep 16 Fiber and Your Microbiome

What Is the Microbiome?

We have all heard the word microbiome bantered about, and seen signs at the health food store labeling bottles of prebiotics and probiotics, but how does it actually relate to us?

The gut microbiome refers to all of the microbes in your intestines and begins to affect your body the moment you are born.

You are first exposed to microbes when you pass through your mother’s birth canal.

As you grow, your gut microbiome begins to diversify, and it affects your body by digesting breast milk, by digesting fiber, by helping control your immune system and by even helping to control your brain health.

Our gut microbiome changes quickly over our first year or two, and stabilizes by the time we are about three years old. As we age, our gut microbiome changes due to our environment, our long-term diet, stress and the drugs we take, such as antibiotics.

Over recent years the gut microbiome, in particular, has been linked to a plethora of diseases and conditions, from diabetes to autism and anxiety to obesity.

Dr. Will Bulsiewicz, a gastroenterologist, has written a new book called Fiber Fueled. In this book he explains the problems many of us have with our gut microbiome and what we can do to improve our health.

An imbalance in your gut’s microbes is called dysbiosis.

Disorders Related to Your Microbiome

According to Dr. Bulsiewicz’s research, many of our chronic conditions are related to that dysbiosis. Damage to the gut microbiome has been associated with metabolic conditions, immune-mediated conditions, endocrine and hormonal conditions and even neuropsychiatric conditions. This varied list of disorders (in alphabetical order) includes:·

· Acute pancreatitis

· ADHD

· Alcoholic cirrhosis

· Alzheimer’s disease

· Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)

· Anxiety

· Asthma

· Autism spectrum disorders

· Bipolar disorder

· Breast cancer

· Celiac disease

· Chronic fatigue syndrome

· Chronic kidney disease

· Chronic pancreatitis

· Coronary artery disease

· Crohn’s disease

· Depression

· Eczema

· Endometriosis

· Erectile dysfunction

· Female infertility

· Fibromyalgia

· Food allergies

· Gout

· Guillain-Barre syndrome

· Hyperlipidemia (high cholesterol)

· Hypothyroidism

· Lupus

· Migraine headaches

· Multiple sclerosis

· Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease

· Obesity

· Parkinson’s disease

· Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)

· Prostate cancer

· Psoriasis

· Restless leg syndrome

· Rheumatoid arthritis

· Schizophrenia

· Scleroderma

· Seasonal allergies

· Sjogren’s syndrome

· Type 1 diabetes

· Type 2 diabetes

· Ulcerative colitis

Causes of Disease

We have discovered by studying identical twins that less than 20 percent of disease is based on genetics. However, if you have the gene for cystic fibrosis or Down syndrome, then you get the disease. But taking all chronic disease across the board, more than 80 percent of your disease risk is determined by your environment and exposures during your lifetime.

You may have certain predispositions, but you ultimately control your health destiny, in large part through the effects of your diet and lifestyle on your microbiome.

Celiac is a genetically motivated disease. This means that you must carry the gene for celiac to get it. If you don’t have the gene, you can’t have the disease. About 35 percent of Americans carry the gene for celiac but only 1 percent manifest the disease. What ultimately determines who expresses the gene?

According to a series of studies, Dr. Elena Verdu showed us that three criteria must be met: 1) presence of the gene, 2) exposure to gluten, and 3) alteration or damage to the gut microbiota.

This is good news because rather than worrying about the 0.5 percent of your DNA that you simply cannot control, let’s optimize our microbiome through diet and lifestyle and enjoy the positive effects it has on 99.5 percent of our DNA plus our epigenetic (the expression of your genes) expression.

Did you know that at least seven of the top ten causes of death- the things that are lowering our life expectancy – are caused by lifestyle? In order they are: heart disease, cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), stroke, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and kidney disease.

According to Dr. Bulsiewicz, the problem is caused by lifestyle and yet we completely ignore lifestyle as a therapeutic option, choosing medications as our primary treatment option.

A medication treats symptoms. It artificially props up something that’s broken. It doesn’t prevent and it certainly doesn’t treat root causes. It’s time for us to stop waiting for the bomb to drop when our health deteriorates and we desperately need “sick care.”

Causes of Dysbiosis

A recent study found a 41 percent increase in non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in those with high exposure to glyphosate (found in Monsanto’s Roundup). Adding credence to this association, in a prospective cohort study of more than sixty-eight thousand French volunteers, those who primarily ate organic foods were less likely to develop non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and postmenopausal breast cancer compared to those who rarely or never ate organic foods.

It comes as no surprise that antibiotics absolutely decimate the gut microbiota. Just five days of ciprofloxacin wipes out about a third of gut bacteria and it takes most people 1-6 months to recover their microbiota.

In the case of clarithromycin and metronidazole, the effects on the gut are still evident four years after treatment.

Antibiotics aren’t the only medicines causing trouble. In one study, 24 percent of tested drugs altered gut bacteria. For example, proton pump inhibitors increase the risk of small intestine bacterial overgrowth and C. diff.

Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) like ibuprofen and naproxen alter the gut microbiota, destroy the intestinal lining to create ulcers, and predispose to inflammatory bowel disease and microscopic colitis.

Oral contraceptives have been associated with the development of both Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.

While medications have a huge impact, we can’t ignore the most important change over the last hundred years – our diet.

The average American eats twenty-three pounds of pizza, twenty-four pounds of artificial sweeteners, twenty-nine pounds of French fries, nearly three pounds of salt, and thirty-one pounds of cheese per year. The United States has the highest meat consumption in the world – about 220 pounds of meat per person per year.

We can’t forget the ten thousand food additives in our food supply that may be destroying our microbiota.

Study after study has shown that a high-fat diet causes an unhealthy balance in microbiota. Sources of trans fats are baked goods, chips, fried food, canned biscuits, nondairy creamer, vegetable oil and margarine.

Saturated fats found in animal foods and tropical oils like coconut oil and palm oil encourage the growth of inflammatory microbes.

Artificial sweeteners induce changes in the microbiome that promote inflammation, insulin resistance, and liver injury.

Animal protein can produce weight loss in the short term but causes a shift in the microbiome that’s bad for our gut health in the long term.

What to Eat to Improve Your Gut Health

According to Dr. Bulsiewicz, changing to a high-fiber diet can definitely improve your gut health. A fiber-rich diet means eating fruit, vegetables, whole grains, beans and legumes before any other foods.

Your gut is completely FIBER STARVED. Less than 3 percent of Americans get even the recommended minimum daily intake.

Fiber is a carb – a complex carbohydrate.

Dr. Rob Knight created the American Gut Project in 2012, the largest and most diverse study of microbes and microbiomes of the industrialized world. He has found that the single greatest predictor of a healthy gut microbiome is the diversity of plants in one’s diet. More specifically, he found that the consumption of thirty different plants in a given week was the greatest predictor of gut microbial diversity.

If you want to improve your gut health, begin eating fiber.

Eat Thirty Different Plant Foods Each Week

I’ve made a list of 98 common plant-foods. After seven days, see if you were able to check off 30 different plants. If you have children, you may want to make a contest out of this. If they are able to get to ten different plant foods during their first week, think of a toy or special event reward rather than ice cream or candy. If you have a choice, buy organic.