What is your gut telling you?

Bite This: There are over 1,000 different species of known bacteria in the human intestines. About 1/3 is common to most people, but the remaining 2/3 can be unique to each of us.  

I told you I would be back to write about gut microbiota. This stuff is fascinating! Gut microbiota is the bacteria living in the human intestine. This bacteria is vital for digestion, immune function, and helps with the production of vitamin B and K.  Gut microbiota is developed at birth and is influenced by many things including diet, exercise, environment, and age. A loss of balance in the gut microbiota can lead to many health issues including digestive problems, obesity, diabetes, and allergies.

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There is a lot of emerging research with how certain dietary elements play a role with the balancing of gut microbiota. I mentioned in a previous post about how one recent study shows a trend with artificial sweeteners and increased glucose intolerance due to changing gut bacteria. This is significant in that as dietitians, we tell our overweight or obese patients to substitute sugar with artificial sweeteners or replace regular soda with diet soda in order to reduce their calorie intake. What this study suggests, however,  is that we may actually be contributing to his/her risk of developing type II diabetes by altering the gut microbiota and potentially causing glucose intolerance.

This study used mice so it cannot be extrapolated to humans quite yet. The gist of it was that the mice were given either sugar water, or water with one of three popular artificial sweeteners. After 11 weeks, the mice that were given the water with the sweeteners had a tendency to develop glucose intolerance. They also observed that if they gave these mice antibiotics, this spike in glucose did not happen. The antibiotics change the gut bacteria which be the reason why their glucose level didn’t spike. Furthermore, they found that the mice fed sugar had more diverse gut bacteria than those fed the artificial sweeteners.
There are also many other studies on how certain foods and even exercise can influence gut microbiota. Again, it just goes to show you that the foods we do and do not eat influence the way our bodies function. Now every time I eat something, I wonder how it is affecting my gut bacteria rather than anything else.

Sound bite: There has been some research showing that foods such as leeks and garlic can change gut bacteria in a favorable way. Try to eat one of these every day this week!