An Interesting article for the weekend

[Polaris]

chriskresser.com/is-a-disru...

[Hidden]

Thanks for link. But I will require a medical dictionary for every other word.

[Polaris in reply to Hidden]

I forgot to add that this is what he had to say about fermented foods:

"We eat a lot of fermented foods now. As we were doing this, we noticed that a lot of our friends, scientists and nonscientists alike, were not doing a lot of the same things we were doing, and then we’d go to a microbiota conference where it was all microbiota researchers, and many of these researchers would be doing the same exact things that we’d be doing. We thought, well, this is really problematic, that we have access to information that has really convinced us to change how we live our lives, but that the information really isn’t available, or at least isn’t being well conveyed to the general public out there"

[Polaris]

Know what you mean Vala - I certainly couldn't take in all the the scientific jargon but I think these are just a few of the interesting and important points he made and confirmed to me why taking organic sauerkraut has helped my gut - therefore, hopefully, my immune system:

"Dr. Justin Sonnenburg makes a powerful argument for viewing our microbiota as the control center for human biology—that our microbiota are not just impacting digestion and absorption, but having systemic impacts on our immune system, our metabolism, and our brain chemistry. We discuss the latest research on the microbiome, the strong connection between low microbiome diversity and modern Western diseases, and how people can support their own microbiome health."

He goes on:

"I would say that the one thing that appears to be holding up and getting stronger—there’s more and more evidence lending to it—is that Americans have a low-diversity microbiota, but even if you look across the American population or European population, you see there’s a spectrum of microbiota diversity, and the people with the lower diversity have worse metabolic health and higher markers of inflammation. If you put them on a dietary intervention that increases their microbiota diversity, a lot of those markers get better. This still isn’t causal evidence, but it lends to this idea that we don’t want infinite diversity in our gut microbiota, there’s probably an optimal amount of diversity, but most of us in the industrialized world are probably operating below what an optimal amount of diversity is for the gut microbiota."

"Chris Kresser: In conventional medicine, there’s a doctor for each different body part, ....and all of these things are being looked at as separate conditions. As a patient, it can be pretty bewildering to just have this idea that you have all of these kind of separate and disconnected things happening and not to have an idea that there might be a common root cause that’s driving all of these pathologies. Of course, what that means is if there is a common root cause, then there’s a possibility of intervening at that level and seeing an improvement across the board in all of these conditions instead of trying to address each of them in a kind of silo fashion with specific drugs and things for each condition."

"Chris Kresser: you’ve written a book...The Good Gut: Taking Control of Your Weight, Your Mood, and Your Long-Term Health....I think you did a fantastic job explaining some potentially pretty complex topics in a way that most people can understand and also just imparting the importance of tending to your microbiota in order to protect your long-term health and prevent chronic disease. Tell us a little bit more about what led you to write this book and what your goal is with it."

"Justin Sonnenburg, PhD: Yeah, sure. In my background as a basic scientist, I studied very specific molecules that are not of general interest to the general public for much of my PhD and postdoc, and as I became more involved in studying mechanisms underlying gut microbiota structure and function, I started to notice that I was changing my lifestyle and diet. My wife, Erica Sonnenburg, we’ve been working together for many years and run this lab together at Stanford. We have two daughters, and we noticed that we were raising our daughters differently over time as we learned more about this field and did more research. That involved diet. That involved lifestyle. We were eating a lot more fiber. We got a dog. We started gardening. We really paid less attention to washing our hands, just to make sure that we were introducing environmental microbes into our life, as long as we hadn’t been at a place where we thought there was a potential for acquiring some scary disease."

[Marz in reply to Polaris]

Have just posted on TUK about - What is a perfect stool ? Have a look if you dare !!

Great post Polaris - I too read his Newsletters - it really helps to keep us up to speed - thank you for posting. Maybe pop it onto TUK too - I am always banging on about gut health so it would be good for it to come from someone else

[Polaris in reply to Marz]

Don't get me started Marz - I could talk about bowels all day long 🤐 😴

I'll certainly read the perfect stool post when I've recovered from trying to understand this one.

I've never forgotten that Jung once wrote that he felt one of the most important symbols from a dream he had was a pile of dung! 💩

[mrsm49]

A long waffly article but basically we need a wide variety of "good" gut bacteria that work in conjunction with our own biochemical functions for a healthy body to function optimally.

I think this is an area that will be looked into further in the future. There has already been a programme on the Tv by a gp about a scientific project in Turkey where reintroducing bacteria (from specially treated stool samples) has improved allergies and blood sugar problems.

I understand fm this article that antibiotics, santisation, caesarians, poor fibre diets all reduce good bacteria. Fermented foods are supposed to increase the good bacteria. It does seem like it's something worth looking into a bit more

[Polaris in reply to mrsm49]

Well put MrsM.

I was amazed how such a simple thing as avoiding gluten and eating organic sauerkraut meant that all the digestive problems I'd had for years virtually disappeared and, hopefully, have healed the microvilli in my gut, enabling better absorption.

[fbirder]

The latest news on probiotics in healthy people - genomemedicine.biomedcentra...

Spoiler: They don't do anything.

[Polaris in reply to fbirder]

Grief FB, are you trying to fry our brains😅 - thanks for this - will try it later - am going to walk on the beach and handle lots of dirty shells and fish poo

[Boozybird in reply to fbirder]

Not quite. Just says not enough info to make definitive conclusion....

'Based on our review of the available RCTs, we find there is a lack of evidence TO CONCLUDED whether or not there is an effect of probiotics on fecal microbiota composition in healthy adults'

😜👍🏼