Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Nope.
Each of us also has a complex collection of bacteria living in
our guts our distinct microbiome that also has genes.
And THOSE genes we can maneuver in any way we want. In
their book The Good Gut: Taking Control of Your Weight, Your
Mood, and Your Long-Term Health, Stanford University
scientists Justin and Erica Sonnenburg write:
Since there is much we can do to shape the environment
within our guts, we have control over our microbiota and can
compensate for the lack of control we have over our human
genome. Our microbiome contains one hundred times more
genes than our human genome, so in fact there is about 99
percent of associated genetic material that we have the
potential to mold in ways that are beneficial to us.
If you doubt the connection between your mood and the
critters in your gut, you must read Peter Andrey Smiths
recent piece in the New York Times called Can the Bacteria in
Your Gut Explain Your Mood? Not to ruin the suspense, but
considering all the optimistic studies Smith includes, the
answer is a resounding YES.
Of course, Im sold on the research because, in the last 18
months, I have conducted my own gut experiment:
eliminating sugar, gluten, dairy, and caffeine; drinking at least
one kale smoothie a day; breaking up with my favorite
pastime of swimming (chlorine kills good bacteria); taking
probiotics and coconut oil; and working with a gastrointestinal
doctor on reversing SIBO (small intestine bacteria overgrowth)
and treating inflammatory bowel disease. The result is that I
havent had death thoughts in many months, and Ive been
do, people will start asking you if youre pregnant and youll
feel like you need to up your antidepressant dose.
3. Limit Antibiotics
My dad died at age 56 of pneumonia. Therefore, I know we
cant afford not to use antibiotics at certain points in our lives.
But regular antibiotic use kills the diverse community of our
microbiota, and therefore wreaks more health hazards than
we could have ever imagined when penicillin was first
discovered. Broad-spectrum antibiotics dont discern between
whats beneficial for our health and whats not: they hold rifles
4. Get Dirty
Our obsession with sanitization is making us sick. Ironic? The
Sonnenburgs cite a May 2013 study published in the journal
Pediatrics that found that children whose parents cleaned
their dirty pacifier by sucking on it instead of boiling it in
water were less likely to have eczema than the kids of the
sanitization freaks. Two years ago, a team of scientists
discovered why children who grow up in homes with a dog
have a lower risk of developing allergies and asthma they
help diversify the microbiome community, of course. The
study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences shows that dog ownership is associated with a kind
of house dust that exposes us to important strains of bacteria,
like Lactobacillus. I believe it, based on the substantial dust
and hairballs that used to grace every corner of our home
when we had two Lab-Chow dogs. Soil, especially, has
wonderful healing elements that we need. Gardening or
weeding can serve as a way of boosting our immune systems.
5. Take a Probiotic
In December 2013, Sarkis Mazmanian, PhD, a microbiologist
at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, led a
study where he discovered that mice with some features of
autism had much lower levels of a common gut bacterium
called Bacteroides fragilis than did normal mice. They were
stressed, antisocial, and had the same gastrointestinal
symptoms often found in autism. Interestingly enough, when
the scientists fed the mice B. fragilis (in a probiotic), they
reversed their symptoms. In an April 2015 study in the journal
Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, researchers in the Netherlands
provided a multispecies probiotic to 20 healthy individuals
without mood disorders for a four-week period, and a placebo
to 20 other participants. According to the abstract:
Compared to participants who received the placebo
intervention, participants who received the four-week
multispecies probiotics intervention showed a significantly
reduced overall cognitive reactivity to sad mood, which was
largely accounted for by reduced rumination and aggressive
thoughts.
7. Lower Stress
When you feel stressed, your body will discharge natural
steroids and adrenaline, and your immune system will release
9. Sweat
Our gut bugs just dont like for us to be lazy; they are much
happier when we get an aerobic workout. A team of scientists
from the University College Cork in Ireland studied the poop of
40 professional rugby players. The results showed that the
athletes microbiomes were far more diverse than those of
two control groups of normal people. In a May 2013 control
study published in the journal PLOS ONE, 40 rats were
assigned to one of four experimental groups: two with free
access to exercise, and two with no access to exercise. A
significant increase in the number of the bacteria
Lactobacillus, Bifidobacterium and B. coccoidesE. rectale
group was found in the micriobiota of rats with access to
exercise. In other studies, as well, it appears that exercise
induces changes in the gut microbiota that are different than,
say, diet. Several physiological changes that result from
exercise, such as increasing intestinal transit time (or flow
rate) through the gut, influencing metabolism, and altering
immune function, are known to affect the microbiota, the
Sonnenburgs explain in their book.