Restoring Gut Flora

Improving Your Gut Health Naturally

In last week’s blog, Anna laid out a pretty compelling argument that the foundation to healthy living starts in our gut.  This week I’m going to try and give you some practical tools to help cultivate a healthy garden in your tummy, or put more technically, improve your gut microbiota.  And if you have read my story on our bio page, you’ll know that I credit repairing and improving my gut health with eliminating many of the chronic health problems that plagued me in my youth.

As with most things health, growing a healthy gut starts with the food you eat.  As the old adage goes, “You are what you eat.” It probably goes without saying that there is no “one size fits all miracle diet” that will work for everyone, but I’m going to try and break down a couple of different studies, in order to find some practical steps we can take to improve our gut health.

If you’re anything like me, then there are years of poor eating habits that need undoing.  There are no quick fixes or simple tricks to perfect health, but building good habits one-by-one and changing our mindset to see health as a lifestyle will pay dividends in the long run. So before you get overwhelmed, and say it’s too hard to change, resolve to pick one thing that you learn from this blog and work to make it a habit. Then build on that success.

Prebiotics vs. Probiotics

Let’s start with the positive side of this lifestyle revamping coin, shall we?  What should we be adding to our diets to naturally improve our gut health? In my research, two words come up over and over again, prebiotic and probiotic.  For those of us without the benefit of a medical degree, I think it’s helpful to summarize what these words mean in common everyday language.  

• Prebiotics: generically are things that we eat or drink that help to make the environment in our gut hospitable to the kinds of bacteria we want to grow.  
• Probiotics: are foods or supplements that contain the actual bacteria that we want to make themselves at home in our gut.
• Synbiotics: Combines prebiotics and probiotics together.

The use of prebiotics and probiotics as part of a food-based strategy to improve the composition of your gut and the associated health benefits is supported by a number of studies [1, 2].  

For those that like analogies, if your gut was a garden the prebiotics would be the fertilizer and the probiotics would be the seeds you want to grow.

Examples of Prebiotic Foods

Naturally, if you want to grow good seeds you need to cultivate healthy soil in your garden, so let’s start with some prebiotic foods that help with that objective.  Remember when your mom would to tell you, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” Well, according to a study published in the journal BMC biology there may some truth to that yarn [3].  

The authors studied the effects of two prebiotic fibers (non-digestible carbohydrates) on certain species of healthy human gut bacteria.  They found that pectin (found in apples, peaches, berries, carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash) aided in the growth of six of the eight desirable bacteria species studied and inulin (found in bananas, garlic, leeks, and asparagus) aided in the growth of two.  

“A banana a day keeps the doctor away?”

A second study in the journal Anaerobe specifically studied bananas for their prebiotic potential [4].  The study was relatively small, only 34 women, (it’s gotta be hard to find a large group of women willing to let you study their poop), but the authors noted a correlation between both the presence of healthy gut bacteria, and fewer negative gastrointestinal symptoms, like boating, in the banana group than in the control group.

Here is a quick list of a couple of foods that have been found to be good for improving gut health:

• Beets [5, 6]
• Purple Sweet Potatoes [7]
• Potatoes [8]
• Cabbage/Sauerkraut (raw or pasteurized) [9]
• Apples [10]
• Bananas [11]

I think it’s safe to go out on a limb here and suggest that most fruits and vegetables have prebiotic fiber in them.  We probably don’t need a peer reviewed study to tell us that we should be eating more fruits and vegetables. The main point I think that this research drives home is that if we aren’t eating enough of these prebiotic foods, then it’s not just that we are missing out on vitamins and minerals or that we are eating too many calories and gaining weight, but we are literally starving the bacteria in our guts that are directly linked to our health (again, see Anna’s blog from last week).

Examples of Probiotic Foods

In addition to foods that have prebiotic properties, there are a number of foods that have been studied that also contain living healthy bacteria (probiotics).  A study in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology looked a number of off-the-shelf fermented foods and found that many of them are good sources of healthy gut bacteria. [12]

Here is a quick list of foods that you may consider adding to your diet as a source of good gut bacteria.  I’ll admit some of them are acquired tastes, but I don’t know a single person that liked coffee or wine right out of the gate, so be brave and give them a couple of chances to grow on you (pun intended).

1. Cultured Dairy
   • Kefir
   • Greek Yogurt
   • Cottage Cheese
2. Fermented Vegetables
   • Sauerkraut
   • Kimchi
   • Beet Kvass
   • Pickles
3. Kombucha (fermented tea)

Anna and I recommend trying to add probiotic foods to your diet because they contain both the healthy bacteria and the prebiotics that those bacteria thrive on.  Just taking a probiotic supplement, while not a bad idea, doesn’t pack that same one-two punch like eating the real thing.

Best Prebiotic and Probiotic Foods

There are a couple of things that you need to be on the lookout for when picking a fermented food up at the store.

1. First, make sure it’s not loaded with sugar.  As you will read later, refined sugar is a killer for a healthy gut.
2. Second, make sure it’s not pasteurized because that means that all of the good bacteria have been killed off already.  A good rule of thumb is that if it’s not in the refrigerator section then it doesn’t have probiotics in it.

These foods are not a one size fits all, some people can’t eat dairy and others can’t stand the taste of sauerkraut.  So, experiment and find something that works for you and your family. I’m confident that both your tummy and tongue will eventually thank you for it.

Worst Foods for Gut Health

Now for the part that nobody likes, the foods that should be either eliminated or enjoyed sparingly in order to promote a healthy gut.  Let’s just get the bad news out of the way, shall we?

Villain #1 – Artificial Sweeteners – Never Eat

The only foods on our “never ever under any circumstances should you eat” list are foods that contain artificial sweeteners.  No sucralose, aspartame, or saccharin. A recent study published on ScienceDirect concludes that these substances are gut killers [13].  The main reason they are on our never list is because we see no upside.  The same study on ScienceDirect linked insulin resistance to an unhealthy gut microbiome.  So if you are eating artificial sweeteners to lose weight or because of blood sugar problems, the further strain on the gut may actually exacerbate the underlying problem.

Villain #2 – Refined Sugars – Enjoy Sparingly

A study published in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (it’s got a long name so you know it’s credible), showed that diets high in simple sugars (glucose, fructose, and sucrose) adversely affect the colonization of good bacteria in mammals [14].

Fruits and vegetables have simple sugars in them, but they also contain prebiotics, so I’m not suggesting cutting any fruits or vegetables from your diet.  However, if you read labels at the grocery store you might be surprised how much simple sugar is added to almost everything! I know I was shocked when I started reading the labels.  “Why does this seasoning salt have sugar in it for crying out loud?!” If we are going to be serious about improving our gut health we need to cut back on the refined simple sugar in our diets.  

Obviously, none of us is going to swear off our favorite treat for the rest of our lives, but consider trying to give up sugar for 30-60 days The break will give your gut a chance to heal. Anna and I have found that we can eat a little ice cream or a few cookies as a treat now that we have healed our guts a little.  But we would not have gotten to where we are without the upfront investment and sacrifice.

Villain #3 – High Fat – Eat with Prebiotics

High fat, low carb diets have been the hip thing since I was in high school. Keto diet people, I’m talking to you.  And they are awesome for losing weight fast. The problem is that high-fat diets are pretty much what every researcher uses to destroy the gut microbiota for their experiments.  If high fat kills good gut bacteria, that means that the weight loss from a pure high fat diet is going to be really hard to maintain because a healthy metabolism needs a healthy gut.  

A study published in the journal Diabetes linked a high-fat diet with diabetes, poor gut microbiota, and a host of other health problems [15].  Not all fats are the same, and there are lots of good reasons to eat good fats, but that’s the subject for another blog.  

Anna and I are big proponents of eating healthy fat, but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.  So how do we balance the good and the bad when it comes to fat and our gut. A study in the journal Scientific Reports looked at the effect of prebiotics in mice fed a high-fat-high-sugar diet [14].  It found, among other things, that the prebiotics normalized insulin response, improved gut microbiota, and even prevented knee damage.  In short, when you eat fat, combine it with healthy prebiotics.

So what now?

Congratulations, you made it to the end.  Take a deep breath, and make a plan. Obviously, you aren’t going to change your whole lifestyle overnight.  Pick something to work on, and set some goals. Try cutting refined sugar, and artificial sweeteners from your diet for 30 days.  Go pick up some apples and bananas from the store and eat them as your snack at work. Or go pick up some raw sauerkraut and try it as a side with dinner.  The path to a healthier lifestyle is made up of a whole bunch of little first steps. We would love to hear what you pick to try, and how it works for you, so don’t be a stranger.  And as always, reach out with questions!

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*Generic Disclaimer: Chris and I are not medical professionals – if you have any pressing medical concerns, please consult your doctor.