Chronic Illness? Feed your Microbiome!

20 years ago I had a professor, a Naturopathic Doctor who grew up in Central American, who prescribed very specific dietary regimens: rye bread but not spelt. Hard Wasa crisps but no crackers. Hard cheeses but not soft ones. Patients and Clinicians often responded to this fringe advice with indignation and skepticism. Nonetheless, patients who took his advice experienced significant health improvements.

From quackery to advanced science: “dysbiosis” and your microbiome

20 years ago, most people considered their body to be fairly sterile. Bacteria in the body meant “infection”. But technology was quickly progressing beyond culturing techniques (where we grow live bacteria in the lab) to DNA and RNA sequencing techniques (which identifies the presence of even dead bacteria – and relatively quickly). We came to determine that our bacteria are a formidable force! Present day research links nearly every autoimmune disorder to changes in the gut microbiome. The same is true for a variety of mental health concerns, chronic pain conditions, skin disorders, cancers, and metabolic concerns such as obesity. In fact, a researcher is hard-pressed to find a health condition not linked to microbiome in some way. And diet, such as the one prescribed by my old professor, is one important way to help get this microbiome back on track.

Your chronic health condition isn’t “genetic”

The last two decades offer us some perspective on what really drives human health. Consider that almost 11% of your genome is identical to that of most mammals, including dormice and dolphins. When it comes to vegetables, tomatoes have about 35,000 genes in comparison to your 20,000 genes.

Now consider that your microbiome is comprised of billions of bacteria that outnumber your human cells at least 2 to 1. Further, each of these bacteria contain about 10 times more genetic material than your human cells. Many of these bacteria live in your digestive tract and significantly influence your immune system health, the gut-brain axis, and your skin.

The research tells us that, in many instances, the microbiome is a more critical underlying cause of chronic health concerns than genetics.

A diverse microbiome is crucial to your health

Once we really understand the nature of this ecosystem inside us, it’s time to start applying some basic scientific ecological principles: A healthy and resilient ecosystem is a diverse ecosystem. For optimal health, we need to encourage diverse species of bacteria in our digestive tract by feeding them many different kinds of foods. This is substantially why eating a variety of plant-based foods is correlated to many health benefits, and why low fiber diets are consistently linked to depleted gut bacteria – an effect that accumulates over generations.

If eating these foods doesn’t feel very good, the root cause can often be addressed with specific diet changes and a variety of prebiotics, probiotics, or postbiotics, designed to help restore balance to an unhealthy microbiome.

Testing your Microbiome

There are many functional tests now available to explore the state of your microbiome. None of them are perfect and we quite honestly have a long way to go before we can use this data in an expert way. However, some of my favourites that help guide my treatment plans with patients, include the Organic Acids test and Comprehensive Stool Analysis or GI Map test.

What else can you do?

Eat as many varieties of veggies as you can! Support local farmers and the veggies that carry a healthy soil microbiome right into your gut. This is one of the main reasons why, at KIHC, we chose to carry Kitchen Table Seed House seeds and sponsor the Memorial Centre Farmers’ Market each season.

Explore fermented foods. Just a little condiment-sized dollop now and again can make a big difference. (If you can’t tolerate these foods, you might really benefit from working with a Naturopathic Doctor or holistic nutritionist.)

When you eat, might be just as important as what you eat. Short fasts (e.g. where one reduces food intake for a few hours or days), can trigger important changes in the microbiome – including those that are linked to the gut microbiome of centenarians (people who live beyond 100 years of age).

Resources:

The Secret Life of our Microbiome (available in our lending library)

Let Them Eat Dirt (also available in our lending library)

National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIH); Environmental Health Science Basics: Microbiome

References:

Biagi E, Franceschi C, Rampelli S, et al. Gut microbiota and extreme longevity. Curr Biol. 2016;26(11):1480-1485. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2016.04.016.

Christmas M, Kaplow IM, Genereux DP, et al. Evolutionary constraint and innovation across hundreds of placental mammals. Science. 2023; 380(6643):3943. doi: 10.1126/science.abn3943.

Lilja S, Stoll C, Krammer U, et al. Five days periodic fasting elevates levels of longevity related Christensenella and sirtuin expression in humans. Int J Mol Sci. 2021;22(5):2331. doi:10.3390/ijms22052331.

Logan, AC. Dysbiotic drift: mental health, environmental grey space, and microbiota. J Physiol Anthropol. 2015; 34(23). doi.org/10.1186/s40101-015-0061-7.

Rook, GAW. The old friends hypothesis: evolution, immunoregulation and essential microbial inputs. Front Allergy. 2023; 12(4):1220481. doi: 10.3389/falgy.2023.1220481.

von Hertzen L, Beutler B, Bienenstock J, et al. Helsinki alert of biodiversity and health. Ann Med. 2015; 47(3):218-25. doi: 10.3109/07853890.2015.1010226.

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