The conversion of food into energy is a wonderfully complicated thing. It’s an undertaking so complicated, in fact, that our muscles and organs can’t do it alone. There needs to be a middleman between ingestion and digestion — and it requires billions of living organisms housed inside your gut.
Experts suggest up to 10 trillion microorganisms live inside the human body. This outnumbers human cells by 10 to 1 and includes more than a thousand different species.
But despite this rich ecosystem of bacteria, you won’t find much competition here — microbiota strive to remain in balance to feed themselves and fuel your body.
Unfortunately, this is a balance that can be disrupted.
And unless we address the root cause, we may be legitimately risking our lives.
How gut microbiome affects metabolic health
You’ve likely heard the saying ‘you are what you eat.’ However, the truth may be closer to ‘you are what your gut digests.’
Humans rely on billions of microorganisms to break down their food. At every meal, multiple species interact with one another to carry out important tasks, which include:
- Fermenting non-digestible substrates such as fiber
- Extracting carnitine from meat and dairy products
- Producing fatty acids, B vitamins, and vitamin K
There’s a great deal we still don’t know about the microbiome. However, we do know that digestive bacteria must remain in homeostasis to carry out their work effectively. Even a small upset to the system (such as high-sugar foods or certain medications) can destroy millions of helpful bacteria — which results in a condition known as dysbiosis.
Dysbiosis is an imbalance of bacterial organisms in the human body. Left unchecked, a gut in dysbiosis can cause worse health outcomes and higher instances of chronic disease — leaving you in a worse state of metabolic health.
The connection between gut microbiome and metabolic health is well documented. Research correlates dysbiosis and low microbiome diversity to:
- Inflammatory bowel disease
- Psoriatic arthritis
- Type 1 and type 2 diabetes
- Atopic eczema
- Celiac disease
- Obesity
- Arterial stiffness
Many of these are tied at the hip with poor metabolic health — which is why changes to your gut health can change your metabolic health, and vice versa.
For example, gut bacteria secrete metabolic hormones like Glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1), which encourages the body to release insulin and decreases inflammation in fat tissue. However, dysbiosis prevents our biome from releasing proper levels of GLP-1, which reduces insulin sensitivity and limits the effectiveness of glucose processing.
The gut microbiome is also associated with the development of a healthy immune system. But consuming processed foods disrupts the natural cycle of microbial organisms, leading to low-grade inflammation that may become a precursor to metabolic disease.
Upsetting the balance of your gut could be a major contributor to poor metabolic health. But not only is dysbiosis a treatable condition, it’s also manageable with simple lifestyle changes.
Improving gut microbiota for better metabolic health
You don’t need a prescription or a doctor’s note to improve your gut microbiome. As long as you’re willing to remain consistent with your efforts, you can make significant progress within a few days or less.
I recommend a multifaceted approach:
- Start consuming more fermented foods. Kombucha, kefir, kimchi, and miso are a few popular examples. Just remember to avoid unnecessarily processed versions that come with added sugar or salt.
- Consider taking prebiotics and probiotics to supplement bacterial diversity. You don’t need to take supplements all the time, but they do provide a much-needed boost in the early stages of biome reconstruction.
- Work on cutting out foods known to unbalance the microbiome. Processed foods, simple carbohydrates, and sugary snacks are all inversely correlated with a healthy gut. I suggest cooking with whole, real foods to introduce diversity back into your body.
You can see positive developments in your microbiome within 24 hours of changing your diet. However, keep in mind it could take months or years before feeling these changes on a macro level.
If you’re interested in tracking your progress on your time, you may want to consider getting some lab work done. If your primary care doctor doesn’t offer fecal tests, you can send in a sample to a qualified lab.
Learning more about how to increase good bacteria in the gut
The gut is a wildly complicated microbiome, and with more than 40% of our bacteria genes performing unidentified functions, we still have a lot of learning to do.
The best way to stay abreast of gut microbiota research is to surround yourself with factual resources and ongoing education. If you’re looking for a community to help direct your efforts, you’re welcome to join one of my metabolic coaching memberships.
You don’t need to guess about next steps in the process of healing your microbiome. My Gold Metabolic Health Coaching plan comes with everything you need to get started, including unlimited group coaching sessions and a monthly Q&A so you can ask more detailed questions and devise a plan of action.