let's talk about the relationship between your gut bacteria and viruses
now in your gut you have something called the microbiome okay I don't know
if you knew this but that's a combination of not just friendly
bacteria but you also have yeast in there you have parasites you have even
Candida and viruses yeah I know there is something called VLP viral like
particles and you have a lot of these in and around your body
now the VLPs are not infected they don't have any genetics inside the cell but
they're viral like particles that exist throughout the body there's not a lot of
things known about them but they're doing research on them now I don't want
to alarm you or freak you out but there's something called the human gut
virome which are clusters of viruses that live in your body and there's a lot of
them I mean think about how many bacteria you have you have like
trillions well these viruses outnumber your bacteria by ten to one and
sometimes 20 to one now these viruses coexist and many times they don't create
a problem unless you have some lowered resistance or some medical problem where
you become susceptible and then they start to create problems but you do have
a lot of viruses living in your body already and this is why it is so
important to keep your immune system very very strong something they don't
talk about on the news and you do have sitting in the background this army of
immune cells not just white blood cells but the microbiome the good bacteria are
part of your immune system and I'm going to talk about some of the
things that they do related to keeping your immune system strong if you're
lacking good bacteria maybe you took antibiotics or something the bad
bacteria can then thrive and also if you're eating foods that stimulate
inflammation the inflammation alone will create a shift from
good bacteria two bad bacteria and you lose the diversity of friendly bacteria
but this good bacteria called the microbiome helps maintain the integrity
of the intestinal barrier so picture this you have this large intestine and
you have this mucous layer on both sides okay and then right across this
intestines you have this lymph layer it's like lymph tissue and you have a
lot of white blood cells and immune cells through here so you have this
protective mucus layer and then you have the good bacteria right here and let the
pathogens and viruses live throughout here as well so one of the key things is
keeping these bacteria working to create this wall to prevent the bad guys from
going across the wall inside your body so this is your immigration okay you
have to get the stamp of approval you have to have a good passport to have
access inside so this is a protective defense mechanism so you have good
bacteria and your white blood cells helping you in defending against the
pathogens so the good bacteria help maintain the integrity of the intestinal
barrier they also keep the inflammation in check so that's important they also
compete for space and food so they don't let the unfriendly bacteria have enough
space to live or enough food because there are so many of these good bacteria
they just basically compete for space and food that's one of those strategies
and they inhibit pathogens by these two mechanisms as well as many other
antimicrobial defenses they have the ability to directly kill pathogens they
also help enhance your immune system when they eat fiber from vegetables for
example they make short chain fatty-acids and these alone can help
reduce inflammation and support your immune system also one of the names of
these short chain fatty acids is called butyrate and that is a really good
anti-inflammatory it helps blood sugars and actually feeds
your colon cells so these microbes make food for your cells now there's also a
crosstalk or a link between the microbes in your gut and your respiratory tract
if you think about these microbes and they're in the trillions they live not
just inside but they live outside the living your lung they help protect
things so there's definitely communication going on through the
entire body there's even communication going on from
your microbes to the colon cells so there's a lot of coordination in the
immune system and you don't have a strong integrity of your good bacteria
you're very susceptible to getting all sorts of pathogens and infections also
the bile salts which are recycled and modified by your friendly bacteria are
antibacterial and also the microbiome has antiviral properties as well one
thing you need to realize is a lot of these pathogens love sugar especially
Candida so that would be something very easy to avoid to keep your immune system
strong also you want to replenish the friendly bacteria sometime and this is
why I always recommend periodic probiotics to keep the good bacteria at
a high level also the prebiotic that's your fiber these microbes love fiber if
you consume a good amount of vegetable every day you can feed them the food
that they thrive on and if you haven't seen my comprehensive digestive video
it's very very simple but it's very comprehensive I put it right here check
it out