Gut health research has come leaps and bounds in the last few years. So much so that there is a social movement towards gut health being the new nutrition trend. This is great for dietitians to see and with February being gut health awareness month we are diving into the ins and outs (pun intended) of gut health.
Gut health is the multiple positive aspects of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. This includes; the absorption of food, intestinal microbiota, immune status, absence of GI illness and overall wellbeing (1). We don’t yet know what a perfect gut microbiome is. However the best measure that we have so far is that a more diverse microbiome is the healthiest (2). It is recognised however, that this is only one metric and there may be other unknown factors that contribute to a healthy gut.
How do you know if your gut is healthy?
The best way to identify that your gut is healthy is to pay attention to your bowel movements. A healthy gut will have a bowel movement from 3 times a day to 3 times a week. I know, a big range for loo norms, but hey everyone is different. It should look like a smooth sausage or a sausage with cracks. It should also be a brown colour. You can also get gut health microbiome tests to inform you of what microbes you have and what range of microbes you have in your gut. These tests however are just a snapshot in time of our gut, our composition changes everyday based on the food we eat, how much sleep we got, how stressed we are and who knows what else. Furthermore, since there is no benchmark for what a normal gut microbiome composition is, what do we do with the test results?
Along with looking in the toilet, listening to your body is the biggest indicator of gut health. It will give you signs that it's not completely happy with what's going on in the gut. These signs could be; ongoing bloating, gut discomfort, unusual bowel movements or formations, flatulence, heartburn, nausea, vomiting, constipation, loss of appetite, fatigue and weight loss (3).
Exercise
Exercise can enrich the microflora diversity in your gut (4). Be sure to have some carbohydrates before exercise to encourage blood flow to the gut which helps to maintain the gut barrier integrity. Exercise also increases your gut flora diversity, reduces Firmicutes, and increases Bacteroidetes. Improving the Bacteroidetes-Firmicutes ratio in our gut can potentially assist with weight reduction and gastrointestinal disorders (5,6).
Tips for Gut Health
Try to eat a large variety of plants every week. Plants contain fiber which are non digestible carbohydrates that feed your gut microbiome prebiotic fibers. This then helps support the health of your gut barrier lining and can cross into the bloodstream to different organs. The key plant foods for fibre include; beans, greens, berries, grains and nuts and seeds. One research study recommended 30 different plants per week (7). This is very hard to do and can be very overwhelming for many people. If you are getting a large variety of plant foods, you feel energised, are opening your bowels frequently, sleeping well, feeling satiated, minimum gas and gut discomfort and can fight off illness quickly then you are doing great.
The optimal amount of plants and fibre intake is what feels best for you. Bloating in the first hour after food is a positive sign that your gut microbiome is flourishing as they are making gas from the foods they love to break down.
A great quick and easy post training option that not only hits fiber intake but also assists in recovery from exercise is Radix Nutrition - Original Breakfast v9.0 - Blueberry or Radix Nutrition - Recovery Smoothie V2 Sachet | Plant-Based - Plant-Based Berry & Banana (64g).
Some great fibrous plant based snacks and powders to add into your diet are; Hammer Nutrition - Energy Bars, Veloforte bars, Probar - Protein Bar and ATP Science - Gutright Daily.
Eating to the Dietary Guidelines of 2 fruit and 5 veg per day has shown a higher diversity in microbiota and greater abundance of bacteria (8).
If you are constipated having two kiwi fruits per day has been proven to help move fibre along in the bowel and reduce GI discomfort of constipation (9)
Be Social! Older adults who experience loneliness may have a less diverse microbiome (10).
Kiss your partner! A 10 second kiss can transfer 80 million bacteria which helps with microbiota diversity (11).
Supplements for athletes to reduce gut permeability include; probiotics, glutamine, and bovine colostrum (12).
Ashley Miller
Dietitian and Nutritionist (Masters)
Bachelor of Physical and Health Education
Instagram: @ashthomo_nutrition
References
(1) Bischoff SC. 'Gut health': a new objective in medicine? BMC Med. 2011 Mar 14;9:24. doi: 10.1186/1741-7015-9-24. PMID: 21401922; PMCID: PMC3065426.
(2) Deng F, Li Y, Zhao J. The gut microbiome of healthy long-living people. Aging (Albany NY). 2019 Jan 15;11(2):289-290. doi: 10.18632/aging.101771. PMID: 30648974; PMCID: PMC6366966.
(3) Bischoff SC. 'Gut health': a new objective in medicine? BMC Med. 2011 Mar 14;9:24. doi: 10.1186/1741-7015-9-24. PMID: 21401922; PMCID: PMC3065426.
(4) Monda V, Villano I, Messina A, Valenzano A, Esposito T, Moscatelli F, Viggiano A, Cibelli G, Chieffi S, Monda M, Messina G. Exercise Modifies the Gut Microbiota with Positive Health Effects. Oxid Med Cell Longev. 2017;2017:3831972. doi: 10.1155/2017/3831972. Epub 2017 Mar 5. PMID: 28357027; PMCID: PMC5357536.
(5) Arike L, Seiman A, van der Post S, Rodriguez Piñeiro AM, Ermund A, Schütte A, Bäckhed F, JohanssonMEV, Hansson GC. Protein turnover in epithelial cells and mucus along the gastrointestinal tract is coordinated by the spatial location and microbiota, Cell Rep, 30 (4) (2020), pp. 1077-87, e3
(6) Costa R, Snipe R, Kitic C, Gibson P.Systematic review: exercise-induced gastrointestinal syndrome—implications for health and intestinal disease. Aliment Pharmacol Ther, 46 (3)(2017), pp. 246-265
(7) McDonald D, Hyde E, Debelius JW, Morton JT, Gonzalez A, Ackermann G, Aksenov AA, Behsaz B, Brennan C, Chen Y, DeRight Goldasich L, Dorrestein PC, Dunn RR, Fahimipour AK, Gaffney J, Gilbert JA, Gogul G, Green JL, Hugenholtz P, Humphrey G, Huttenhower C, Jackson MA, Janssen S, Jeste DV, Jiang L, Kelley ST, Knights D, Kosciolek T, Ladau J, Leach J, Marotz C, Meleshko D, Melnik AV, Metcalf JL, Mohimani H, Montassier E, Navas-Molina J, Nguyen TT, Peddada S, Pevzner P, Pollard KS, Rahnavard G, Robbins-Pianka A, Sangwan N, Shorenstein J, Smarr L, Song SJ, Spector T, Swafford AD, Thackray VG, Thompson LR, Tripathi A, Vázquez-Baeza Y, Vrbanac A, Wischmeyer P, Wolfe E, Zhu Q; American Gut Consortium; Knight R. American Gut: an Open Platform for Citizen Science Microbiome Research. mSystems. 2018 May 15;3(3):e00031-18. doi: 10.1128/mSystems.00031-18. PMID: 29795809; PMCID: PMC5954204.
(8) Baldeon AD, McDonald D, Gonzalez A, Knight R, Holscher HD. Diet Quality and the Fecal Microbiota in Adults in the American Gut Project. J Nutr. 2023 Jul;153(7):2004-2015. doi: 10.1016/j.tjnut.2023.02.018. Epub 2023 Feb 22. PMID: 36828255.
(9) Gearry R, Fukudo S, Barbara G, Kuhn-Sherlock B, Ansell J, Blatchford P, Eady S, Wallace A, Butts C, Cremon C, Barbaro MR, Pagano I, Okawa Y, Muratubaki T, Okamoto T, Fuda M, Endo Y, Kano M, Kanazawa M, Nakaya N, Nakaya K, Drummond L. Consumption of 2 Green Kiwifruits Daily Improves Constipation and Abdominal Comfort-Results of an International Multicenter Randomized Controlled Trial. Am J Gastroenterol. 2023 Jun 1;118(6):1058-1068. doi: 10.14309/ajg.0000000000002124. Epub 2022 Dec 20. PMID: 36537785; PMCID: PMC10226473.
(10) Nguyen TT, Zhang X, Wu TC, Liu J, Le C, Tu XM, Knight R, Jeste DV. Association of Loneliness and Wisdom With Gut Microbial Diversity and Composition: An Exploratory Study. Front Psychiatry. 2021 Mar 25;12:648475. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2021.648475. PMID: 33841213; PMCID: PMC8029068.
(11) Shaping the oral microbiota through intimate kissing Remco Kort, Martien Caspers, Astrid van de Graaf, Wim van Egmond, Bart Keijser and Guus Roeselers Microbiome 2014, 2:41
(12) Wilson P. Sport Supplements and the Athlete's Gut: A Review. Int J Sports Med. 2022 Sep;43(10):840-849. doi: 10.1055/a-1704-3086. Epub 2021 Nov 23. PMID: 34814219.
