11 Tips for a Healthy Gut Microbiome
Our gut microbiome is key to our overall health. These 11 tips for a healthy gut microbiome include diversifying your diet and eating organic foods.
11 Tips for a Healthy Gut Microbiome
The more we learn about the gut microbiome, the more we understand that it’s key to our overall health. The gut is home to the largest part of our immune system, many of our hormones and nearly all our serotonin—a critical neurotransmitter that affects mood and sleep. It’s also home to trillions of microbes, which interact with all parts of our gut. Knowing this, what can we do to heal and maintain gut health? What constitutes an ideal microbiome diet? Here are a few rules to live by:
1. Diversify Your Diet
Just like humans, different microbes in your gut have different dietary preferences, so it’s important to eat foods that feed all of them. “As in any ecosystem, the health of the microbiome is determined by the diversity and abundance of its species,” says UCLA professor Emeran Mayer, MD, author of The Gut-Immune Connection. “The greater the diversity, the more resilient it is and the more resistant to disease.” A more diverse diet spurs population booms of many different types of gut microbes, including gut bacteria, archaea and eukarya—and therefore improves intestinal health.
2. Eat Foods Grown in Healthy, Organic Soil
Microbe-rich, living soil, as opposed to dirt that’s full of synthetic fertilizers, helps plants produce molecules called polyphenols that help restore your gut microbiome naturally. Look for organic food in the grocery store or farmers market—or, if you’re a backyard gardener, raise your vegetables organically.
“Within a healthy soil microbiome, soil microbes interact with the roots of plants, stimulating them to produce health-promoting and disease-fighting molecules—in particular the polyphenols.”
—Emeran A. Mayer, MD, UCLA
3. Eat Plants
The bacteria in your gut crave fiber, and plants have it. Eating a range of plants like legumes, fruits, vegetables, berries, spices and roots is the best boost for your gut health. Even better is eating plants in season, since they tend to have higher nutrient density than plants grown out of season.
4. The Rawer the Better
Cooking fruits and veggies for too long can break down their fibers. This is a problem for the microbes in your gut because fiber is their main source of fuel. Keep microbes well fed by eating raw or lightly cooked foods.
5. Blending Beats Juicing
Juicing might sound healthy, but actually, it strips the fibers from your produce and leaves just sugars—which cause blood-sugar and insulin spikes. Better to blend instead and keep all of that fibrous goodness.
6. Steer Clear of Industrial Meat
Industrial meat producers routinely give antibiotics to their livestock to prevent and treat illness. This regular exposure changes the animals’ gut microbiomes. It also changes ours when we eat those animals, suppressing the diversity and abundance of our own gut microbes. Eating organic, antibiotic-free meat is better for a balanced microbiome.
7. Avoid White Flour and Sugar
These highly processed carbs are not good for your gut. They’re rapidly absorbed in the first part of your small intestine, thereby starving the majority of microbes in the rest of your gut.
8. Eat Anti-Inflammatory Foods
Try to regularly consume foods with known anti-inflammatory properties, like turmeric and ginger. Some studies show that these can counteract low-grade immune activation—so-called metabolic toxemia—which is implicated in the development of chronic diseases, including chronic fatigue and depression.
9. Regularly Consume Fermented Foods
Fermented foods contain live microbes, or probiotics, that can help invigorate your gut microbiome, providing serious health benefits. An unhealthy gut microbiome can lead to “leaky gut syndrome” and has been associated to asthma, eczema and Alzheimer’s disease, says nutritionist Dr. David S. Ludwig, a professor of nutrition at Harvard.
10. Try Time-Restricted Eating
Keeping your gut totally empty for 10 hours or more per day can help some people reduce immune dysfunction by keeping the gut microbiome healthier and improving the intestinal barrier. But it’s important to consult a health care provider, as intermittent fasting may not be right for everyone.
11. Consistency Is Key
It’s easier to keep your gut microbiome healthy than to restore it. Regularly consuming diverse, probiotic foods (including lots of plants) is your best bet for achieving optimal gut health.
