Human body contains ten times more microorganisms than human cells. Shocker, I know. We heavily depend on our microbes — they give us protection, help regulate our hormones, digest food and so much more. 

Most of the population of our microbes is located in the gastrointestinal tract. In fact, the human colon is one of the most — if not the most — densely populated by bacteria places in the world.

Microbiome is incredibly fascinating. It depends on us as much as we depend on it and the connection between your health and that of your gut flora is much stronger than you might think!

What does our gut microbiome do for us?

Microbiome and mental health.

You might be thinking what kind of bullshit even is that?

But it is very much the truth — about 90% of your serotonin is produced by gut bacteria, and only 10% of it is produced in the brain.

As I’m sure you already know, serotonin is also known as the hormone of happiness. It’s essential for regulating our mood and is responsible for our feeling of happiness and well-being. It plays a big role in the communication of our body and brain cells, and helps us sleep well and digest our food properly.

Addressing your gut problems can potentially majorly improve your mental health and alleviate anxiety, depression and troubled sleep. Of course, a bucket of ice cream or a tray of chocolate chip cookies might bring you happiness in the moment, while you’re eating it, but in the long term the effect could very easily turn opposite.

Microbiome and estrogen.

Yes, you read that right — your gut bacteria helps with circulating estrogens regulation, which have an enormous power over women’s health (they affect men’s health too, btw).

Microbiota produces an enzyme(β-glucuronidase) that basically activates estrogen, letting your body actually use it. Making sure that your gut bacteria is happy, healthy and well-balanced could quite possibly prevent a lot of estrogen related disorders or even treat the preexisting ones.

Microbiome and skin.

This particular connection is pretty well known, I think. But if this is the first time you’re reading about it, let me bring you up to speed — your gut plays a significant role in how your skin is doing.

If there is some sort of disbalance in the gut and the protective bacterial layer of your intestines is disrupted, the pathogenic microflora can penetrate intestinal walls and end up in your bloodstream from where it can travel pretty much everywhere in your body, wreaking havoc wherever it goes.

And that is just one way a disbalance in the gastrointestinal tract can cause skin problems, there are so many other potential complicated ways the skin and the gut microbiome can be connected.  

Microbiome and inflammation.

Disbalance in the gut can affect not only the skin, as I said it can cause problems all over.

See, when the gut walls lose their integrity and the things that are supposed to be contained in the intestines end up in your bloodstream, it causes your body to react to it.

Blood is meant to be sterile, and whenever something pathogenic gets into it, the system tries to get rid of it A.S.A.P, launching an inflammatory response. It cleans out everything that’s wrong and things get back to normal.

But what if the bacteria is “leaking” all the time? It can possibly lead to chronic inflammation processes in the body, which then can trigger a variety of diseases, including IBS, cardiovascular diseases and cancer. 

Microbiome and circadian rhythms.

Diversity and health of your microbiome is also associated with sleep quality. Your microbes have their own biological clock, just like you do.

When your sleeping schedule is stable and predictable, the microbes adapt to it — it’s just so much easier for them when they “know” what to expect from you.

On the other hand, if you sleep in a sporadic manner, your gastrointestinal flora doesn’t know what the fuck is happening and what and when it’s supposed to do anymore. It causes disbalances in your gut and this disbalance in turn affects your circadian rhythms. 

Microbiome and weight gain.

Uh-huh. The microbiome is a gift that keeps on giving, isn’t it?

Balanced bacteria are definitely connected to your metabolism and healthy weight — remember, they regulate estrogen? Well, estrogen levels being too high or too low can provoke weight gain.

Microbes also influence production of ghrelin, a.k.a the hunger hormone. If your microbiome is disbalanced, your ghrelin levels might potentially get thrown off leading to wanting to eat more than you actually need. 

That’s why eating foods that are considered “unhealthy” excessively is even worse than we tend to think. Heavily processed junk food causes microbial disbalances when consumed thoughtlessly and then the imbalance causes you to eat more and then you can guess what’ll happen if you continue eating more and more “bad” food.

Now, I’m not saying that you have to avoid junk food completely, surely you can eat some occasionally. That’s why I put words bad and unhealthy in quotation marks — there’s no good reason to vilify food, putting those labels on things you eat can and probably will lead to disordered eating.

You just need to keep in mind that it should be a treat, something you don’t do everyday. Otherwise it could turn into a vicious circle. Balance is the key. 

Microbiome and muscle growth.

Healthy microbiome is essential for your muscles to grow after exercise. Although so far the research has been conducted only on mice, it’s pretty safe to assume that the human gastrointestinal microbiome has a similar effect on muscle growth.

So far it’s not clear how exactly this works but apparently it does work that way — mice that have been treated with antibiotics (which deplete the gut bacteria) grew less muscle and did it slower than untreated mice with healthy microbiomes. 

Microbiome and vitamin synthesis.

While we do get most of the vitamins from the food we’re ingesting on a daily basis, some vitamins, like vitamin K and B vitamins, are partially synthesized by our bodies.

You’ve probably already guessed where exactly the synthesis takes place, right?

Sure, even if your gut is functioning properly and everything is going according to nature’s plan, the amount of vitamins that your gut bacteria makes is nowhere near the recommended daily intake, but it’s still a great addition. Besides, it’s much easier for your body to use than supplements or even vitamins you’re getting from food. 

So…

If we take these facts combined with knowing that most of our microbiome is located in our intestines into the consideration, it’s a no-brainer that we must take good care of our gut and make sure the microbes are well-balanced.

Of course, it’s hard to determine exactly what is wrong with a particular person’s microbiome (if anything is wrong at all) and it’s hard to figure out what needs to be fixed and how to fix it.

The connection between the microbiota and the host is incredibly complicated, especially from a non-scientist’s point of view. The ways your gut affects the organs and systems are intertwined with the body’s influence on the microbiome in mysterious ways – everything is connected.

The best thing you can do is try to do as many things “right” as possible and do your best to take care of your microbes. 

How do you take care of your gut health?

Firstly, it’s important to understand that gut health is a two-way street.

Unhealthy microbiome has a humongous influence on your health, but your health does it right back.

You have to have so many things in control in order to maintain a good relationship between your body and your gut microflora, nothing will be an overnight “cure” or a miracle. Though there is some good news — the bacteria adapts and changes fairly quickly, so if you’ll commit to making changes, within a few weeks you’ll likely see some improvements.

Fermented foods

One of the best — and easiest — things you can do for your microflora is eating fermented foods.

It’s rich with good bacteria and has a positive effect on the diversity and health of gut microbiota.

So what exactly should you try?

Yogurt, kimchi, sauerkraut, sourdough bread, kombucha, kefir, miso, cheese, sour cream, pickles, kvass — all are great probiotics.

Implementing some of these into your diet a few times per week will surely improve the function of your microbiome and digestion.

If you don’t like the idea of having any of them, you can take probiotic supplements instead, that would do the trick as well.

Fiber, fiber, fiber

Our body doesn’t digest fiber fully and we don’t get pretty much any energy out of it. Nonetheless, it plays a big role in the functioning of the whole system.

You’ve probably heard hundreds of times from different sources that fiber is good for you and you need it in your diet. But why?

See, the good guys in your gut are the ones that feed off fiber. If you don’t have enough fiber on a daily basis, a lot of bacteria strains in your intestines just die off because they don’t have anything to sustain them. Others start feeding off your intestinal mucus lining to survive.

As you can imagine, with the good bacteria slowly but surely deteriorating, the harmful part of the microbiota starts thriving and multiplying, potentially causing a multitude of problems throughout your entire body. 

So, having a sufficient amount of fiber is necessary for a healthy balance in your gut. You should aim for around 25-30 grams of fiber per day — don’t go overboard either, too much fiber can cause digestion problems, such as bloating, diarrhea, cramps or constipation. 

Balanced diet

Not only do you need an adequate amount of fiber, you also should make sure that you eat enough carbs, proteins and healthy fats, and that your diet is rich in all the necessary vitamins and minerals.

Sounds hella boring, I know, but I promise it will pay off. By the way, it doesn’t mean that your daily menu has to consist of exclusively “healthy” foods. Everything is acceptable as long as it is in moderation and your body’s (and microbiome’s!) needs are met. 

Less added sugar

The more sugar you consume, the more Proteobacteria (which pretty much are the “bad guys”) are in your gut and the less Bacteroidetes — the good bacteria — there are. Obviously, this disbalance will inevitably cause some major problems in your system. So, it’s a good idea to keep added sugar intake to a minimum. 

Less antibiotics

Antibiotics are a great thing, undoubtedly, when used correctly.

Thanks to them we now can cure a lot of deadly diseases that were thought of as incurable in the past. It’s been only a century since the first antibiotic medicine was invented, can you believe that?

In those hundred years more than a hundred other types of antibiotics were discovered and synthesized. In the modern world though, sadly, those amazing drugs are overused. Doctors prescribe antibiotics way more than actually needed and a lot of patients not only expect that but sometimes even demand the prescription every time they get sick.

Careless use of antibiotics is dangerous not only to the person who’s taking them, but potentially for the rest of the world as well — harmful bacteria can mutate and become immune to drugs. We already need more and more new antibiotics to deal with bacteria that became resistant to the old ones — what if eventually we will run out of options? Which will probably happen if people won’t stop taking antibiotics every time they sneeze.

But that is not the only reason we all should be way more careful with antibiotics.

While they usually target specific strains of harmful bacteria, the good guys in your gastrointestinal tract take a hit as well and if you don’t take care of the situation you’ll be forced to deal with a ton of annoying consequences.

So, if you’re taking antibiotics, make sure to supplement probiotics and prebiotics to avoid problems within your microbiome!

Less alcohol

While some alcoholic drinks, e.g small amounts of high quality red wine, do have a positive impact on human microbiome (increasing diversity of good bacteria in your gut for example), hard liquor or low quality drinks will disturb the balance in the gut, especially when consumed regularly and/or in large quantities.

Be mindful of what you’re drinking and how much of it you’re drinking — having no more than 1-2 glasses of good wine or high quality beer per week would be ideal. Of course, it’s best to not drink alcohol at all since it harms so many more things in your body than just the gut, but that’s a story for another day 🙂

Less stress

So far it’s not clear how exactly this mechanism works, but it’s safe to say that a significant amount of stress can cause alterations within your microbiome therefore potentially making a number of negative changes throughout your whole body.

Try your best to stay stress-free as much as possible — your bacteria is going to be pretty happy about that.

In conclusion, the microbiome is definitely one of the most important systems in our body.

We likely know only a tiny fraction of what it does for our bodies, even with all the research that’s been going on recently. More and more information on connections of the microbiota to pretty much every system of our body is coming out every year.

What else we don’t know about it?

What if deciphering the entire purpose of our little passengers is the key to curing diseases? 

Share your thoughts in the comments!