Just about everyone has some attention on health right now. Wishing to be healthier is not enough, but making the smartest changes isn’t easy. Where do you start? Keto, Carnivore, Vegetarian, less meat, more veggies, super foods, plant-based?
There is one change that you can make, regardless of dietary preferences, that will improve your health in several ways. This change can lower cholesterol, assist weight loss, curb appetite, boost the immune system, and help prevent cancer, diabetes, and cognitive decline. And it’s not a pill.
What is this miracle no-calorie ingredient?
We used to call it “roughage” and now we call it Fiber.
The Metamucil commercials promoting fiber have been around for years. Fiber does help keep you “regular” which is pretty important in itself. Your systemic health depends on eliminating toxins through the bowel so they don’t get reabsorbed.
Probiotics are a big buzzword in supplements and fermented products like yogurt and kefir. Kombucha and foods like sauerkraut and kimchi also contain probiotics. These are organisms that we hope will seed and flourish in the lining of the gut. Collectively these critters (bacteria, fungi, and viruses) are called the gut flora or the microbiota.
New research is showing us that the more varieties of organisms, the healthier we are. In the West we have been systematically destroying our gut flora through chemicals and toxins, overuse of antibiotics and vaccines, and other prescription medications that interfere with normal functioning of the body systems even when they are neccessary. Examples include diabetes drugs, blood pressure drugs, birth control pills, and anti-depressants. [i]
Fiber is food for the microbiota. Fiber makes us feel fuller and adds bulk to help with bowel health. It also helps to eliminate excess fats and may lower cholesterol. One of the main dietary changes in the way we eat compared to our ancestors, or people who eat their local food instead of Western processed foods, is the amount of fiber consumed.
Eating lots of simple carbs such as snacks and sweets only feeds unhealthy gut bugs because the healthy organisms that keep the balance will die out without the fiber they need. An at-home stool test can tell you which species of gut flora are flourishing, which are struggling, and if you have too many bad bugs taking over. (Contact me if you want to know more about this testing.)
Fortunately, most species of microbiota are health promoting. These gut flora microbes guard the intestinal lining, manufactures B vitamins for us, and help our immune cells to do their job of eliminating disease-causing pathogens.
The microbiota also make some of our hormones, improving hormone balance and improving emotional responses and mood. It may also contribute to our metabolism in ways that we are only beginning to understand.
"Over the last 15 years, different researchers have contributed to decoding the mechanisms explaining how the ingestion of non-digestible carbohydrates (e.g., inulin-type fructans, arabinoxylans, chitin glucan, resistant starches) improves metabolic disorders through a gut microbiota-dependent pathway [24], [25], [26]. In 2004, it was reported that changing the gut microbiota in rats using three different prebiotics (inulin-type fructans) that varied according to their chemical structure reduced food intake, body weight, and fat mass [24]. This discovery raised key questions: how can we explain that changing the gut microbes by using prebiotics affects the control of a brain-controlled factors such as food intake?"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5004142/
What if we have been wrong, or only partially right, about the weight and obesity problems in the Western world? Some people overeat the foods that make them gain weight, and have a difficult time resisting the very foods that are leading them down the path towards degenerative disease. Maybe improving the microbiome (the collective body of microorganisms) is a big piece of the puzzle and could help repair metabolism and a return to a more ideal weight.
This is a very exciting new frontier of medicine that is only now being explored, and the key have been with us, inside our bodies, all along. We have been waging war on our own health without knowing it.
It is starting to look like feeding your gut flora may be one of the most important things you can do for your long-term health.
How much fiber should you eat daily? Most Americans only get 10-15 grams per day, but you should aim for at least three times that amount. The best sources are whole foods: fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and beans/legumes.[ii] Go slow at first. Fiber can make you a bit rumbly if you are not used to it.
My next blog will list some other foods with fiber that may surprise you.
Meanwhile, it goes back to the simple basics. Whole unprocessed foods, as close to Nature as possible, feed those friendly gut bugs that do so much for our health. So, love your good bugs and they will love you back!