Check out this new video on the microbiome.
And if you want more, just go to NutritionFacts.Org/Topics/Microbiome
for all my videos on good gut health.
"How to Cultivate a Healthy Gut Microbiome with Food"
When we eat meat, dairy, eggs, seafood,
our gut flora can take certain components in them
(carnitine and choline) and produce something
that ends up as a toxic compound called TMAO,
which may set us up for a heart attack, stroke, and death.
So, give people two eggs, and you get a spike of TMAO
in your bloodstream within hours of consumption.
Because gut bacteria play a critical role in this process, though,
if you then give them a week of antibiotics to wipe out
their gut flora and refeed them two more eggs, nothing happens.
No TMAO in their bloodstream because they have
no egg-eating bacteria to make it.
But give it a month for their gut bacteria to start to grow back,
and the eggs start to cause TMAO production once again.
The same thing with meat.
Give people the equivalent of an 11-ounce steak,
and TMAO levels shoot up in the blood.
But feed them the same amount after a week of antibiotics
and nothing happens.
So to run into problems,
you need both the meat and the meat-eating bugs.
That's why you can feed a vegan a sirloin,
and they don't produce TMAO within their body.
They just don't have the meat-eating bugs in their gut.
Okay, now this should all be old news for those who've been
following the science. The reason for this video is to show
that this phenomenon happens the other way around, too.
When we eat whole plant foods, like fruits, vegetables,
whole grains, and beans, along with nuts and seeds,
our gut flora can take certain components in them
(fiber and resistant starch) and produce short-chain fatty acids
which can set us up for the prevention of human diseases.
Short-chain fatty acids like butyrate can help seal up a leaky gut,
fight inflammation, prevent weight gain, improve insulin sensitivity,
accelerate weight loss, and fight cancer.
But these benefits rely on two things:
eating fiber and having fiber-feeding bugs,
just like the detrimental effects from TMAO required not only
eggs, dairy, or meat,
but also the eggs, dairy, or meat-munching bugs.
Check this out.
If you give people whole intact grains —
in this case barley kernels, also known as barley groats —
three servings a day,
like I recommend in my Daily Dozen app,
within just three days of eating that extra 30+ grams
of fiber and resistant starch,
their gut bugs were so happy and produced so many
short-chain fatty acids that people's insulin levels improved by 25%,
which means their bodies needed to produce less insulin
to take care of the same amount of white bread, while still
dampening the blood sugar spike. But this was on average.
Some people responded to all that extra fiber with beautiful dips in
blood sugar and insulin responses, but in others, the same amount
of fiber and resistant starch didn't work at all.
Why? Because you don't just need fiber, but fiber-feeding
bugs like Prevotella. How do you get more Prevotella
so you can take full advantage of the health benefits of plants?
Eat more plants. Prevotella abundance is associated
with long-term fiber intake. If you look at rural
African children eating 97% whole food, plant-based diets,
their Prevotella is off the charts compared to kids eating
standard Western diets, and this is reflected in
the amount of short-chain fatty acids they are
churning out in their poop.
In the industrialized world, it's those habitually eating
vegetarian and vegan that promotes the enrichment
of fiber-eating bacteria in the gut.
Here's the relative Prevotella abundance between those
who eat meat, no meat, or all plants.
This may help explain the worse inflammatory profile
in omnivores than in vegetarians.
Based on the findings relative to bacteria abundance,
the researchers suggest that exposure to animal foods
may favor an intestinal environment which could trigger
systemic inflammation and insulin resistance-dependent
metabolic disorders such as type 2 diabetes.
And it's the reduced levels of inflammation that may be
the key factor linking a plant-based gut microbiota
with protective health benefits.
Yeah, but can't meat-eaters eat lots of plants, too?
Omnivores have constraints on diet-dependent gut
microbiome metabolite production. In other words,
it's the flip side of the vegan eating a steak.
They can eat all the fiber they want but may be lacking
in fiber-munching machinery. At low levels of fiber intake,
the more you eat, the more of the beneficial short-chain
fatty acids are made.
But at a certain point, your available fiber-feeders
are maxed out, and there's only so much you can benefit.
But those habitually eating a plant-based diet have been
cultivating the growth of these fiber-feeders,
and the sky's the limit, unless, of course,
you're eating vegan junk.
But a whole food, plant-based diet should be effective in promoting
a diverse ecosystem of beneficial bacteria to support
both our gut microbiome and our overall health.