There was an amazing article in the New York Times last month written by one of my favourite nutrition Journalist/Author – Michael Pollan. It’s a long article so I thought I’d highlight the points of interest on our blog.
The gist of the article drives home one of the mainstays of Naturopathic Medicine – that bringing balance to our internal ecosystem can have a profound effect on our health. Pollan talks to a number of scientists and microbiologists to unravel a complex “interior wilderness” made up of about 1 trillion or 1-2 lbs of bacteria on our skin, mouth, intestines, and vaginal tracts. It turns out, most of the DNA in our body comes from these microbes (99%), which may play as great or greater role in our health than the DNA we inherited from our parents.
Some examples of how these bacteria impact our health include:
- Metabolism: obese mice transplanted with the intestinal community of lean mice lost weight and vice versa
- Diabetes & Metabolic Syndrome: a lean donor’s microbiota transferred to the guts of patients with metabolic syndrome improved the recipients’ sensitivity to insulin
- Allergies & Autoimmune Disease: because our bacteria help us accurately distinguish friend from foe, disruption of our microbiome can be a cause of allergy development and an increase in autoimmune diseases
- Stress & Temperament: when gut microbes from easygoing, adventurous mice were transplanted into the guts of anxious and timid mice, they become more adventurous
- Digestion & Weight: the bacteria produce signalling chemicals that regulate our appetite, satiety and digestion
- Intestinal Health (Crohn’s, Colitis, IBS, etc): the bacteria digest fibre from our food to produce nourishment for intestinal cells, keeping our digestive tract in good health
- Inflammation: a depleted microbiota was found to lead to a more permeable intestinal barrier which led to an increase in immune activation and inflammation
Pollan states that “more diversity is probably better than less, because a diverse ecosystem is generally more resilient — and diversity in the Western gut is significantly lower than in other, less-industrialized populations.” He attributes this depleted Western internal ecosystem to:
- Over-use of antibiotics (as medicines and in our food)
- Sterility of processed food
- Lack of fibre in the Western Diet
- Additives in processed food
- Generally less exposure to bacteria in everyday life (antibiotic soaps, Lysol wipes, etc)
The scientists interviewed are not quick to jump on quick-fix or cure-all recommendations. But when Pollan asked then if the researchers themselves made any personal changes to improve their microbiota diversity, they admitted to the following:
- Take antibiotics (and give to children) only when necessary(to avoid depleting the bacteria diversity)
- Relax the sanitary regime (e.g., encouraging children to play in the dirt and with animals) (to increase natural exposure to a wider variety of bacteria)
- Eliminate or cut back on processed foods (shown to impact microbiome diversity)
- Eat more naturally fermented foods (e.g., miso, sauerkraut, kimchi, etc) (contains a wide variety of bacteria)
- Eat more and a larger variety of fibre (e.g., bananas, oats, beans, root vegetables, nuts, whole grains, avocados, etc.) (to feed the good bacteria)
- Reducing processing of “scratch” ingredients (e.g., Al dente pasta vs. soft pasta; steel-cut oats vs. rolled oats; raw or lightly cooked vegetables vs. overcooked) (to feed the good bacteria)
- Add plants when having fast-food or junk food (to mitigate its inflammatory effect)
One of the scientists calls for a “paradigm shift to fix the impoverished “Westernized microbiome” – “restoration ecology”on the human gut.” Pollan ends the article by suggesting that even though this research is just starting to show us the complex ecosystem inside our bodies, we know enough to start to “tend the unruly garden within.”
For the full article visit this link at the New York Times website.
Naturopathic Doctor
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