What is the Microbiome?

The microbiome is the community of bacteria that live on us and in us. We are also made of viruses and fungus. Science shows that we are 4-10x more bacteria cells than we are human cells. The bacteria, or probiotics create something called postbiotics. These are beneficial molecules that they make for us. For example, serotonin is a neurotransmitter that is responsible for good mood and happiness. Even know this is for the brain, 90% of it is created in the gut via microbes. In order to do this, they need prebiotics. This is basically food for the bacteria, which we will cover later.

Things that Damage Your Microbiome

Haphazard use of antibiotics-

Antibiotics can be great and life saving in the right circumstance, but they’re often prescribed unnecessarily. The CDC had published an article showing that at least one third of all antibiotic prescriptions are unnecessary. This can lead to a host of problems. Antibiotics generally kill every microbe in sight, both beneficial and pathogenic. This gets rid of a lot of beneficial bacteria, and it may be very hard to recover, if at all. These are often prescribed for viruses like the common cold. That’s an issue because antibiotics don’t even kill viruses, they’re designed to kill bacteria. The other issue is that it has created antibiotic resistant forms of bacteria. This means that they wont kill these pathogenic organisms. This is a huge problem because we may not have anything to get these infections under control. Another thing is that 80% of all antibiotics are actually used in livestock to fatten up animals, but that is a whole nother story.

Pesticides-

Pesticides, herbicides, fungicides have been proven to be neurogenic, or estrogenic. This means that it disrupts the nervous system, or the endocrine system. It messes with the pests reproduction via hormones. Also, these are designed to kill very small things, this includes our microbiome. We are made up of these tiny organisms, and pesticides have a profound impact on them. 

Sugar-

Sugar also has a profound impact on the microbiome. For one, it feeds opportunist bacteria. Opportunist bacteria are organisms that can play a beneficial roll, but could cause disease if they’re not on check. Sugar has been shown to increase opportunists while decreasing beneficial microbes.

How to Enhance the Microbiome

Fiber-

Fiber is a form of carbohydrates. To keep it simple, there are only two types, soluble and insoluble fiber. Soluble fiber feeds the microbiome and helps create short chain fatty acids. Insoluble fiber is resistant to being broken down and adds bulk to stool. It’s worth mentioning resistant starch. Resistant starch is starch that is resistant to digestion and serves as food for microbes. Some great sources are tiger nuts, green bananas, and heated and cooled potatoes.

Wide variety of plants-

It’s always a good idea to eat a variety of plants because they all have different properties that feed different microbes. Consuming different types of grains, nuts, seeds, legumes, fruits, and vegetables. Each food has its own unique microbiome which you ingest. To amp this up even more, consume fermented foods.

Fermented foods-

Fermented foods have been used by ancient humans as a way of preserving food. The technique of fermenting cultures many strains of beneficial bacteria. This will you expose your microbiome to a variety of strains to be more robust. Some of the fermented foods are sauerkraut, kimchi, keifer, kombucha, and yogurt.