Cherries Improve Gut Health

(Natural Blaze by Heather Callaghan)

Cherries for gout, cherries for gut health. While Montmorency tart cherries have a reputation as both a gout and sleep remedy – it turns out they can actually play a major role in improving gut health.

An international team of scientists has discovered that Montmorency tart cherries – the kind that makes exquisite cherry pies – have a positive impact on the gut microbiome. Microbiome refers to the trillions of bacteria and other microbes living in the intestines. The microbiome is the hottest research trend today because it is now believed that the gut acts as one of the strongest parts of our immune system and impacts our behavior since the microbes among us can act as a “second brain.” It is also offered that the microbiome determines much of  heart health, blood sugar control, weight and brain health.

Tart cherries are top fruit for antioxidants – But in a first-of-its kind study, a human trial of nine adults was combined with a parallel laboratory study (Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry) to explore just how much cherries could be a gut-friendly food. The results of the study hold an interesting surprise.

Related: Best Supplements To Kill Candida and Everything Else You Ever Wanted To Know About Fungal Infections

Weber Shandwick Chicago reports:

While previous studies on Montmorency tart cherries have ranged from heart health and exercise recovery to sleep, this is the first study to explore the potential gut health benefits. The researchers speculate that it may be due to the polyphenols (anthocyanins and other flavonoids) in Montmorency tart cherries, the varietal of tart cherries grown in the U.S. Polyphenols in plant-based foods are broken down by microbes to stimulate growth of good bacteria.

“Montmorency tart cherries were a logical food to study due to their unique composition of polyphenols, including chlorogenic acids,” said principal investigator Franck Carbonero, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Food Science at the University of Arkansas. “Our results suggest that the unique polyphenol mixture in tart cherries may help positively shape the gut microbiome, which could potentially have far-reaching health implications.”

Want to know the amazing part? This study was done using tart cherry juice from concentrate!

The report cont.,

…In the human trial, nine healthy adults, 23-30 years old, drank 8 ounces of Montmorency tart cherry juice (from concentrate) daily for five days. These individuals were non-smokers and had not taken antibiotics (which can affect the microbiome) in the 12 weeks prior and during the study. Using stool samples, the participants’ microbiome was analyzed before and after the dietary intervention, and food frequency questionnaires were used to evaluate their overall diet.

The lab study, however, tried to mimic the human digestive process and tested how polyphenols would break down in three different regions of the intestines, such as the colon.

Related: Sugar Leads to Depression – World’s First Trial Proves Gut and Brain are Linked (Protocol Included)

The researchers tested U.S.-grown Montmorency tart cherries, European tart cherries, sweet cherries, apricots and isolated polyphenols in each simulated region of the digestive tract. They analyzed changes in the mix of bacteria and how these bacteria helped digest the polyphenols over time.

The results?

Just five days of drinking the juice significantly increased the good gut bacteria of participants in the trial.

Five days.

But before you waste your money on a supplement – read this!

Everyone’s microbiome is different so the cherry juice affected everyone’s gut health differently.

Those who had the healthiest diets (loaded with vegetables, fruit, complex carbohydrates) received the most benefit from tart cherry concentrate. They could process the polyphenols and their guts showed an increase in Bacteroides and Bifidobacterium, probably due to the specific combination of polysaccharides and polyphenols.

Related: Cherries – The Superfood You Should Know About

Those who had a SAD diet (typical Western foods – fried, sugary, low in fiber, etc.) had a lower ability to metabolize polyphenols and therefore, lower bioavailability of the good stuff. Strangely, “instead of Bifidobacterium, Collinsella were the beneficial polyphenol-degrading bacteria stimulated.”

Best Paleo Recipes for Beginners (Ad)

It sounds like someone would be much better off improving their diet before adding tart cherry concentrate to the mix. Some people like to add these concentrates to sparkling water. If you decide to try it, black cherry and grape taste better than tart cherry when added to carbonated water. Nothing beats eating the fruits themselves. Of course, there’s no harm to the occasional piece of homemade pie, given the power of fruit. There are even amazing paleo recipes you can follow!

Do any of you add cherries to your diet or supplement regimen? If so, what were the results? Sound-off below!


This article (Cherries Improve Gut Health) was created by and appeared first at Natural BlazeIt can be reshared with attribution but MUST include link to homepage, bio, intact links and this message. Image: Cherry Marketing Institute

favorite-velva-smallHeather Callaghan is an Energy Healer, consultant, independent researcher/writer, speaker and food & health freedom advocate. She is the Editor and co-founder of NaturalBlaze as well as a certified Self-Referencing IITM Practitioner. She has written over 1,200 articles and wants readers to empower themselves to take back their health!

Is Your Gut Causing Sleepless Nights?

(Dr. Mercola) You share your body with trillions of microorganisms, the bulk of which reside in your gut, including your stomach and small and large intestines. There, however, they are not restricted to influencing only the goings-on of your digestive process.

Far from it, these microorganisms, collectively known as your microbiome, influence your body’s homeostasis daily and are intricately tied to other body systems via a number of complex pathways, including the gut-brain axis and a recently revealed gut-brain-bone marrow axis, the latter of which may influence your blood pressure, mood and more.

One of the most compelling avenues of study relating to your microbiome is how it relates to your sleep. It’s already known that sleep influences your gut health, in part because lack of it makes it harder for you to control your impulses and manipulates hormones linked to food intake, causing you to eat more and crave unhealthy foods.

So skimping on sleep is a remarkably good bellwether of a poor diet, the latter of which can quickly take a toll on your gut health. Now researchers are asking whether the opposite also holds true and perhaps your microbiome influences your ability to sleep as well.

Can Your Microbiome Keep You Up at Night?

Although the science is in its early stages, researchers are looking into whether improving gut health could act as a new form of sleep therapy. Michael Breus, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and fellow of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, told The Guardian:1

“There is no question in my mind that gut health is linked to sleep health, although we do not have the studies to prove it yet. Scientists investigating the relationship between sleep and the microbiome are finding that the microbial ecosystem may affect sleep and sleep-related physiological functions in a number of different ways: shifting circadian rhythms, altering the body’s sleep-wake cycle, affecting hormones that regulate sleep and wakefulness.”

For instance, writing in the journal Chest, researchers pointed out that changes in gut microbiota have long been linked to lifestyle behaviors such as diet, travel, exercise and disturbances to circadian rhythm.2 Meanwhile, diseases once primarily attributed to lifestyle, such as obesityheart disease and depression, are turning out to have increasing links to microbiota. In this case, they believe that “microbial-immune cross-talk” may be playing a role in obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), particularly in fatal cases.

“[W]e posit that altered patterns of sleep and oxygenation, as seen in OSA, will promote specific alterations in gut microbiota which in turn will elicit the immunological alterations that lead to OSA-induced end-organ morbidities,” they stated. Likewise, in the Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology, researchers evaluated the interplay between sleep dysfunction, gastrointestinal health and disease, with particular focus on how the effects of sleep and circadian rhythm disruption could affect the microbiota.3

Yet another study pointed out that partial sleep deprivation is known to alter gut microbiome, and its composition is linked to cognitive flexibility. Their study found that there could be a link between sleep quality, composition of gut microbiome and cognitive flexibility in older adults, such that “improving microbiome health may buffer against sleep-related cognitive decline in older adults.”4

Prebiotics Affect REM and Non-REM Sleep

Prebiotics, which act as food for the beneficial bacteria, or probiotics, in your gut, have already been found to influence sleep in animal studies. When young rats were fed a diet containing prebiotic fiber or a control diet for four weeks, the prebiotic group spent more time in restful and restorative non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep cycles.5

In addition, rats eating prebiotics had an increase in beneficial gut bacteria as compared to the control group and spent more time in REM sleep after being stressed, which is important for promoting recovery. The researchers noted:6

“The results of the current study demonstrate that a … diet rich in prebiotics … started in early life increases the growth of Lactobacillus rhamnosus and alleviates the stress-induced disruption of REM sleep, diurnal physiology and gut microbial alpha diversity.

Rats on the test diet exhibited decreased impact of the stressor, including increased REM sleep rebound following stress, attenuated disruption of the diurnal rhythm of CBT [core body temperature], and prevention of dysbiosis in all three measures of alpha diversity …

Given that sufficient NREM sleep and proper nutrition can impact brain development and function and that sleep problems are common in early-life, it is possible that a diet rich in prebiotics started in early-life could help improve sleep, support the gut microbiota and promote optimal brain/psychological health.”

Dr. Michael Mosley, a doctor-journalist with BBC News, conducted a similar trial on himself, taking prebiotics for five days, and noticed a remarkable improvement in his sleep. Prior to the prebiotics, he spent 21 percent of his time in bed awake but this dropped to 8 percent after the prebiotics.7

Related: Insomnia – A Comprehensive Look with Natural Remedies

This isn’t definitive proof that prebiotics improve sleep, but considering the many other benefits they add to your health, there’s little harm, and potentially great gain, in adding them to your diet. If you’re interested in adding more prebiotic fiber to your diet to improve the health of your microbiome, and possibly your sleep, the following foods are good sources:8

Apples Asparagus Banana
Beetroot Breast milk Burdock root
Cashews Chicory root Couscous
Fennel bulb Garlic Grapefruit
Green peas Jerusalem artichokes Jicama
Konjac root Leeks Nectarines
Onion Persimmon Pistachios
Pomegranate Savoy cabbage Seaweed
Shallots Snow peas Tamarillo

Too Little Sleep Alters the Bacteria in Your Gut

The many ties between your microbiota, your sleep and your overall health only continue to grow. For instance, melatonin, the sleep hormone, is made from serotonin, and is normally found in abundance in your gut — even more so than in your brain. Gut bacteria affect both serotonin and melatonin production.

Related: Holistic Guide to Healing the Endocrine System and Balancing Our Hormones

Further, the composition and functions of your gut microbiome is affected by circadian rhythm disruptions, including jet lag. Researchers believe circadian rhythms play a key role in regulating the gut microbiome as well as its responses to gastrointestinal pathogens.9

If you skimp on sleep, you also prompt changes in your body’s microbial community. When men slept for just four hours a night for two nights in a row, the balance of bacteria in their gut shifted.10 Specifically, they had increased firmicutes to bacteroidetes ratio, higher abundances of the families Coriobacteriaceae and Erysipelotrichaceae and lower abundance of Tenericutes, changes that have previously been linked to metabolic disturbances. The researchers concluded:11

“Our findings demonstrate that short-term sleep loss induces subtle effects on human microbiota. To what extent the observed changes to the microbial community contribute to metabolic consequences of sleep loss warrants further investigations in larger and more prolonged sleep studies.”

The Link Between Sleep, Depression and Your Gut

Your gut microbiome plays an intricate role in your mood, and sleep plays a role in depression, raising intriguing questions about how all three — microbiome, sleep and depression — are related. Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London, told The Guardian:12

“We know that people who live with depression and people who sleep poorly both have abnormal microbes in the gut, which would suggest there is a very real connection here between all three … I’ve always found that if you help someone sleep, it improves their depression, and vice versa. If we can also look after the gut, this may have an impact on both sleep disturbances and mood disorders.”

Also intriguing, a small study involving adults diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and depression found the probiotic Bifidobacterium longum provided depression relief. At six weeks, 64 percent of the treatment group had reduced depression scores compared to 32 percent of the control group that received a placebo.13

Related: Natural Remedies for Depression

Those receiving the probiotic also reported fewer symptoms of IBS and improved overall quality of life. At the end of 10 weeks, approximately twice as many in the treatment group were still reporting lower levels of depression.

Interestingly, functional MRI scans revealed a link between reductions in depression score and actual changes in brain activity, specifically in areas involved in mood regulation, such as the amygdala. As noted by Dr. Roger McIntyre, professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at the University of Toronto, who was not involved in the study:14

“We know that one part of the brain, the amygdala, tends to be red-hot in people with depression, and it seemed to cool down with this intervention. It provides more scientific believability that something in the brain, at a very biological level, seems to be affected by this probiotic.”

Could Your Diet Improve Both Your Sleep and Your Gut Health?

Another common thread affecting both your sleep and your gut is your diet. One study evaluating the diets and sleep patterns of more than 4,500 people found distinct patterns:15

  • Very short sleepers (less than five hours a night): Had the least food variety, drank less water and consumed fewer total carbohydrates and lycopene (an antioxidant found in fruits and vegetables).
  • Short sleepers (five to six hours): Consumed the most calories but ate less vitamin C and selenium, and drank less water. Short sleepers tended to eat more lutein and zeaxanthin than other groups.
  • Normal sleepers (seven to eight hours): Had the most food variety in their diet, which is generally associated with a healthier way of eating.
  • Long sleepers (nine or more hours): Consumed the least calories as well as less theobromine (found in chocolate and tea), choline and total carbs. Long sleepers tended to drink more alcohol.

Further, Spector told The Guardian, “[I]f we eat badly, we sleep badly … If you wanted to improve sleep, you could try a gut-friendly regime by eating a broad and inclusive diet with real food, not processed.”16 Indeed, it’s likely that eating a varied, whole food diet is one key to normal, healthy sleep and gut health alike. If you need some help in this area, check out my nutrition plan for a step-by-step guide to optimizing your eating habits.

As for how to support a healthy microbiota, which could do more to improve your sleep than is currently appreciated, it isn’t very complicated, but you do need to take proactive steps to encourage its health while avoiding factors known to cause harm. This includes:

Do Avoid
Eat plenty of fermented foods. Healthy choices include lassi, fermented grass-fed kefir, natto (fermented soy) and fermented vegetables. Antibiotics, unless absolutely necessary, and when you do, make sure to reseed your gut with fermented foods and/or a high-quality probiotic supplement.
Take a probiotic supplement. Although I’m not a major proponent of taking many supplements (as I believe the majority of your nutrients need to come from food), probiotics are an exception if you don’t eat fermented foods on a regular basis Conventionally raised meats and other animal products, as CAFO animals are routinely fed low-dose antibiotics, plus GE grains loaded with glyphosate, which is widely known to kill many bacteria.
Boost your soluble and insoluble fiber intake, focusing on vegetables, nuts and seeds, including sprouted seeds. Chlorinated and/or fluoridated water. Especially in your bathing such as showers, which are worse than drinking it.
Get your hands dirty in the garden. Exposure to bacteria and viruses can help to strengthen your immune system and provide long-lasting immunity against disease.

Getting your hands dirty in the garden can help reacquaint your immune system with beneficial microorganisms on the plants and in the soil.

Processed foods. Excessive sugars, along with otherwise “dead” nutrients, feed pathogenic bacteria.

Food emulsifiers such as polysorbate 80, lecithin, carrageenan, polyglycerols, and xanthan gum also appear to have an adverse effect on your gut flora.

Unless 100 percent organic, they may also contain GMOs that tend to be heavily contaminated with pesticides such as glyphosate. Artificial sweeteners have also been found to alter gut bacteria in adverse ways.17

Open your windows. For the vast majority of human history, the outside was always part of the inside, and at no moment during our day were we ever really separated from nature.

Today, we spend 90 percent of our lives indoors. And, although keeping the outside out does have its advantages it has also changed the microbiome of your home.

Research shows that opening a window and increasing natural airflow can improve the diversity and health of the microbes in your home, which in turn benefit you.18

Agricultural chemicals, glyphosate (Roundup) in particular is a known antibiotic and will actively kill many of your beneficial gut microbes if you eat foods contaminated with it.
Wash your dishes by hand instead of in the dishwasher.

Research has shown that washing your dishes by handleaves more bacteria on the dishes than dishwashers do, and eating off these less-than-sterile dishes may actually decrease your risk of allergies by stimulating your immune system.

New Insight Into How “Gut Feelings” Affect Mental Health, Depression And Anxiety

(Natural Blaze by Alex Pietrowski) In recent years, the study of causes and treatments of depression has uncovered a link to the health of the microbiome within the body’s digestive system. The hypothesis is that the presence or absence of healthy digestive bacteria affects the way the brain functions, and new research by a Florida State University neuroscientist sheds more insight into this.

The findings by research and psychology professor Linda Rinaman point to a very important connection between the gut and the brain, identifying pathways that help to understand why so-called ‘gut feelings’ have a powerful influence on emotions, mood and decision-making.

Related: Sugar Leads to Depression – World’s First Trial Proves Gut and Brain are Linked (Protocol Included)

We expect these lines of research will help us better understand how gastrointestinal functions contribute to both normal and disordered mental function. ~Linda Rinaman

Her research looked at pathways between the gut and the brain in mammals, noting how feelings generated within the gut move into the brain, indicating that some ‘gut-feelings’ are a red flag and thereby may be a fair indicator of healthy mood and mental states.

In the human body, the vagus nerve acts as the pathway between the brain and gut. The nerve is the body’s largest and most extensive nerve, translating and carrying messages between the gastrointestinal tract and the brain. If the gut is operating optimally, the brain is cued to respond more positively. Food and proper supplementation are important factors.

Related: Candida, Gut Flora, Allergies, and Disease

Scientific and anecdotal evidence suggests a poor diet can cause those protective, cautionary signals to get out of whack, leading to altered mood and behavior. For example, Rinaman said, a high-fat diet can promote a low-grade inflammatory response in the GI tract, changing vagal signals and possibly exacerbating symptoms of anxiety, depression or other disturbed mental states.

Rinaman said the types of bacteria within your gut are shaped by your diet, and those bacteria can affect your emotional and cognitive state. [Source]

The emotional significance of the vagus nerve is discussed further:

Research indicates that a healthy vagus nerve is vital in experiencing empathy and fostering social bonding, and it is crucial to our ability to observe, perceive, and make complex decisions. Tests have revealed that people with impaired vagal activity have also been diagnosed with depression, panic disorders, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), irritable bowel syndrome, anxiety, panic disorders, violent mood swings, fibromyalgia, early Alzheimer’s and obesity. Given the state of society today and the vast array of dis-eases associated with unhealthy Vagus Nerves, it doesn’t take a medical doctor to conclude that by healing our collective Vagus Nerves, we can heal a lot of societies woes.

Scientists have discovered that artificial Vagus Nerve Stimulation (VNS), through electrical impulses via a surgically implanted pacemaker like device, shows promising results in reducing depression, anxieties and even conditions such as epilepsy and obesity. VNS has also shown positive effects in promoting weight-loss as the signals to the brain of ‘fullness’ are more easily transmitted. But what if there were a less intrusive and more natural way to stimulate and heal the Vagus Nerve? ~Frank Huguenard

Related: Gluten, Candida, Leaky Gut Syndrome, and Autoimmune Diseases

The important takeaway here is that supporting healthy gut function along with healthy function of the vagus nerve is being demonstrated to be a potentially very potent way of holistically approaching treatment of depression and anxiety.

Evidence shows that modifying the diet, perhaps by consuming probiotics, can impact your mood and behavioral state. That’s very clear in animal and human studies. ~Linda Rinaman

5 Neat New Things You Need To Know About Gut Health

(Natural Blaze by Lisa Egan)

Over two thousand years ago, Hippocrates said “All disease begins in the gut.”

The father of modern medicine was way ahead of his time. While gut health is not linked to every disease (as far as we currently know), continuing research into the gut microbiota is revealing just how important the communities of bacteria that reside there are to our overall health.

Bacteria coexist with us – and some do things that help us (like make vitamins, break down waste, aid in digestion, and help plants absorb nitrogen from soil). Yes, there are bacteria that are dangerous (like the ones that cause tuberculosis, cholera, and Lyme disease), but most of the bacteria in your body is rendered harmless by your immune system.

You have trillions of cells in your body – and it is estimated that you have about the same amount of (some estimates say 10x more) microorganisms in your gut!

Related: Fungal Infections – How to Eliminate Yeast, Candida, and Mold Infections For Good

Research suggests that the relationship between gut flora and humans is a mutualistic, symbiotic relationship. This means that it is a mutually beneficial relationship – the microbes need us, and we need them.

Microbiome 101: Understanding Gut Microbiota explains just how important these microbes are:

The communities in our microbiome carry out a variety of functions which are vital to not only our health and well-being but our very survival.

Starting with our immune system, our microbiome establishes the parameters in which our bodies judge whether or not something is friend or foe. It maintains harmony, balance, and order amongst its own communities, ensuring that opportunistic pathogens are kept to a minimum, while also keeping the host system from attacking itself.

It is our first, second and third line of defense – starting with our skin, then our mucus membranes, and finally our gut, providing a living barrier that is able to be modified and transformed to suit individual needs and unique environments.

Our gut microbiota is fundamental to the breakdown and absorption of nutrients. Without it, the majority of our food intake would not only be indigestible, but we would not be capable of extracting the critical nutritional compounds needed to function. Our symbiotic cohorts not only provide this service, but also secrete beneficial chemicals as a natural part of their metabolic cycle.

As you can see, research into what the microbiota does for us, and how we can keep it healthy, is of utmost importance. There are so many studies being published on a regular basis that it’s hard to keep up.

Related: How to Detoxify and Heal the Lymphatic System

Here are summaries of some recent research findings.

1. Common Antimicrobial Agent Rapidly Disrupts Gut Bacteria

This study’s findings suggest that triclosan, an antimicrobial and antifungal agent found in many consumer products ranging from hand soaps to toys and even toothpaste, can rapidly disrupt bacterial communities found in the gut.

The researchers found that triclosan exposure caused rapid changes in both the diversity and composition of the microbiome in the laboratory animals. It’s not yet clear what the implications may be for human health, but scientists believe that compromising of the bacteria in the intestinal tract may contribute to the development or severity of disease.

Christopher Gaulke, lead author on the study and a postdoctoral microbiology researcher in the OSU College of Science, explains:

Clearly there may be situations where antibacterial agents are needed.

However, scientists now have evidence that intestinal bacteria may have metabolic, cardiovascular, autoimmune and neurological impacts, and concerns about overuse of these agents are valid. Cumulative impacts are also possible. We need to do significantly more evaluation of their effects, some of which might be dramatic and long lasting.

2. Immune System Uses Gut Bacteria to Control Glucose Metabolism

Researchers at Oregon State University and other institutions have discovered an important link between the immune system, gut bacteria and glucose metabolism – a “cross-talk” and interaction that can lead to type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome when not functioning correctly.

The researchers say a better understanding of these systems may lead to new probiotic approaches to diabetes and other diseases. The findings also show the  general importance of proper bacterial functions in the gut and the role of one bacteria in particular – Akkermansia muciniphila – in helping to regulate glucose metabolism.

This bacteria’s function is so important, scientists say, that it has been conserved through millions of years of evolution to perform a similar function in both mice and humans.

There’s probably more than one bacteria involved in this process of communication and metabolic control, researchers said. The gut harbors literally thousands of microbes that appear to function almost as a metabolically active organ, emphasizing the critical importance of gut bacterial health.

Dr. Natalia Shulzhenko, an assistant professor in the OSU College of Veterinary Medicine and one of the corresponding authors on this study, said of the findings:

It’s being made clear by a number of studies that our immune system, in particular, is closely linked to other metabolic functions in ways we never realized. This is still unconventional thinking, and it’s being described as a new field called immunometabolism. Through the process of evolution, mammals, including humans, have developed functional systems that communicate with each other, and microbes are an essential part of that process.

Related: Gluten, Candida, Leaky Gut Syndrome, and Autoimmune Diseases

3. High-Fiber Diet Keeps Gut Microbes From Eating the Colon’s Lining, Protects Against Infection, Animal Study Shows

When microbes inside the digestive system don’t get the natural fiber that they rely on for food, they will rely on the natural layer of mucus that lines the gut instead – eroding it to the point where dangerous invading bacteria can infect the colon wall. Yikes!

“The lesson we’re learning from studying the interaction of fiber, gut microbes and the intestinal barrier system is that if you don’t feed them, they can eat you,” Eric Martens, Ph.D, one of the study’s lead researchers, explained.

“To make it simple, the ‘holes’ created by our microbiota while eroding the mucus serve as wide open doors for pathogenic micro-organisms to invade,” said Mahesh Desai, Ph.D, who led the research with Martens.

Martens provided a bit of advice based on the findings:

While this work was in mice, the take-home message from this work for humans amplifies everything that doctors and nutritionists have been telling us for decades: Eat a lot of fiber from diverse natural sources. Your diet directly influences your microbiota, and from there it may influence the status of your gut’s mucus layer and tendency toward disease. But it’s an open question of whether we can cure our cultural lack of fiber with something more purified and easy to ingest than a lot of broccoli.

4. Gut Bacteria Affect Our Metabolism

Our gut microbiota has been linked to obesity in many studies. Mice that receive gut bacteria transplants from overweight humans are known to gain more weight than mice transplanted with gut bacteria from normal weight subjects, even when the mice are fed the same diet.

A new, larger study conducted by the National Food Institute confirmed those findings, and the researchers also investigated how the spread of bacteria between individual mice affects their digestion/metabolism.

Professor Tine Rask Licht explains:

The bacterial community in the intestine of mice with the smallest weight gain has been less capable of converting dietary fibre in the feed, which partly explains the difference in weight between the animals.

In addition, the study shows that the gut bacterial composition affects a number of other measurements, which have to do with the ability of the mice to convert carbohydrates and fats, and which affect the development of diseases such as type 2 diabetes (e.g. levels of insulin and tryglycerides). The researchers caution that it cannot be concluded that bacterial communities from the overweight children affects the mice in a specific direction in relation to the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

Related: Candida, Gut Flora, Allergies, and Disease

5. Gut Microbes Contribute to Recurrent ‘Yo-Yo’ Obesity

Following a successful diet, many people regain the weight lost – an all-too-common phenomenon known as “recurrent” or “yo-yo” obesity. The vast majority of recurrently obese individuals not only rebound to their pre-dieting weight but also gain more weight with each dieting cycle. During each round of dieting-and-weight-regain, their proportion of body fat increases, and so does the risk of developing the manifestations of metabolic syndrome, including adult-onset diabetes, fatty liver, and other obesity-related diseases.

Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science found that the gut microbiome plays an important role in post-dieting weight gain, and that by altering the composition or function of the microbiome this common phenomenon may prevented or treated.

The study was performed by research teams headed by Dr. Eran Elinav of the Immunology Department and Prof. Eran Segal of the Computer Science and Applied Mathematics Department. The researchers found that after a cycle of gaining and losing weight, all the mice’s body systems fully reverted to normal – except the microbiome. For about six months after losing weight, post-obese mice retained an abnormal “obese” microbiome.

“We’ve shown in obese mice that following successful dieting and weight loss, the microbiome retains a ‘memory’ of previous obesity,” says Elinav. “This persistent microbiome accelerated the regaining of weight when the mice were put back on a high-calorie diet or ate regular food in excessive amounts.” Segal elaborates: “By conducting a detailed functional analysis of the microbiome, we’ve developed potential therapeutic approaches to alleviating its impact on weight regain.”

The findings of this study are fascinating and promising. I highly recommend reading the entire press release here.

Healthy 90 Year-Olds Have The Same Gut Bacteria As 30 Year-Olds

(Natural Blaze by Karen Foster) In one of the largest microbiota studies conducted in humans, scientists have shown a potential link between healthy aging and a healthy gut — finding that the overall microbiome composition of healthy elderly people was similar to that of people decades younger, and that the gut microbiota differed little between individuals from the ages of 30 to over 100.

There are over 400 species of bacteria in your belly right now that can be the key to health or disease.

Health care of the future may include personalized diagnosis of an individual’s “microbiome” to determine what probiotics are needed to provide balance and prevent disease. They’re thought to encode more than 3 million genes in the body, and this complexity of bugs may also be responsible for immune dysfunction that begins with a “failure to communicate” in the human gut, scientists say.

Must Read: Gluten, Candida, Leaky Gut Syndrome, and Autoimmune Diseases

Led by researchers from the Lawson Health Research Institute at Western University, Canada, and Tianyi Health Science Institute in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu, China the study analysed gut bacteria in a cohort of more than 1,000 Chinese individuals in a variety of age-ranges from 3 to over 100 years-old who were self-selected to be extremely healthy with no known health issues and no family history of disease.

The results showed a direct correlation between health and the microbes in the intestine.

”The main conclusion is that if you are ridiculously healthy and 90 years old, your gut microbiota is not that different from a healthy 30 year old in the same population,” said lead researcher Greg Gloor at the Lawson Health Research Institute.

“The aim is to bring novel microbiome diagnostic systems to populations, then use food and probiotics to try and improve biomarkers of health,” added Professor Gregor Reid, also of the Lawson Health Research Institute. “It begs the question – if you can stay active and eat well, will you age better, or is healthy ageing predicated by the bacteria in your gut?”

Cause or Effect?

Whether the findings are the result of cause or effect is unknown, but the team behind the study point out that it is the diversity of the gut microbiota that remained the same through their study group.

Must Read: Autism, Gut Health, Obesity, the MMR Vaccine, and Andrew Wakefield

“This demonstrates that maintaining diversity of your gut as you age is a biomarker of healthy aging, just like low-cholesterol is a biomarker of a healthy circulatory system,” said Gloor.

However, the team go further, by suggest that resetting an elderly microbiota to that of a 30-year-old might help promote health.

“By studying healthy people, we hope to know what we are striving for when people get sick,” said Reid.

The team noted that the present findings suggest that the microbiota of the healthy aged differ little from that of the healthy young in the same population, although the minor variations that do exist depend upon the comparison cohort.

“This baseline will serve for comparison for future cohorts with chronic or acute disease,” wrote the team. “We speculate that this similarity is a consequence of an active healthy lifestyle and diet, although cause and effect cannot be ascribed in this (or any other) cross-sectional design.”

They added that one surprising result was that the gut microbiota of persons in their 20s was distinct from those of other age cohorts.

“This result was replicated, suggesting that it is a reproducible finding and distinct from those of other populations,” said the team — who noted that further work will now investigate this unexpected finding.

Must Read: Candida, Gut Flora, Allergies, and Disease

“This observation may result from an altered diet, altered energy requirements, or an unknown cohort effect, although if the latter, it must have occurred countrywide as the same effect was observed in a population of university age students from Jiangsu Province and from police and military recruits originating from all provinces in China,” the Canadian and Chinese team concluded.

6 SURPRISING FACTS ABOUT MICROBES IN YOUR GUT

1. What’s in Your Gut May Affect the Size of Your Gut

Need to lose weight? Why not try a gut bacteria transplant?

New research published in the journal Science suggests that the microbes in your gut may play a role in obesity.

2. Probiotics May Treat Anxiety and Depression

Scientists have been exploring the connection between gut bacteria and chemicals in the brain for years. New research adds more weight to the theory that researchers call “the microbiome–gut–brain axis.”

Research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science shows that mice fed the bacterium Lactobacillus rhamnosus showed fewer symptoms of anxiety and depression. Researchers theorize that this is because L. rhamnosus acts on the central gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) system, which helps regulate emotional behavior.

L. rhamnosus, which is available as a commercial probiotic supplement, has also been linked to the prevention of diarrhea, atopic dermatitis, and respiratory tract infections.

Related: Gut Health

3. The More Bacteria the Better

While bacteria on the outside of your body can cause serious infections, the bacteria inside your body can protect against it. Studies have shown that animals without gut bacteria are more susceptible to serious infections.

Bacteria found naturally inside your gut have a protective barrier effect against other living organisms that enter your body. They help the body prevent harmful bacteria from rapidly growing in your stomach, which could spell disaster for your bowels.

To do this, they develop a give-and-take relationship with your body.

“The host actively provides a nutrient that the bacterium needs, and the bacterium actively indicates how much it needs to the host,” according to research published in The Lancet.

4. Gut Bacteria Pass from Mother to Child in Breast Milk

It’s common knowledge that a mother’s milk can help beef up a baby’s immune system. New research indicates that the protective effects of gut bacteria can be transferred from mother to baby during breastfeeding.

Work published in Environmental Microbiology shows that important gut bacteria travels from mother to child through breast milk to colonize a child’s own gut, helping his or her immune system to mature.

5. Lack of Gut Diversity Is Linked to Allergies

Too few bacteria in the gut can throw the immune system off balance and make it go haywire with hay fever.

Researchers in Copenhagen reviewed the medical records and stool samples of 411 infants. They found that those who didn’t have diverse colonies of gut bacteria were more likely to develop allergies.

But before you throw your gut bacteria a proliferation party, know that they aren’t always beneficial.

6. Gut Bacteria Can Hurt Your Liver

Your liver gets 70 percent of its blood flow from your intestines, so it’s natural they would share more than just oxygenated blood.

Related: After Taking Antibiotics, This Is What You Need To Do To Restore Healthy Intestinal Flora

Italian researchers found that between 20 and 75 percent of patients with chronic fatty liver disease–the kind not associated with alcoholism–also had an overgrowth of gut bacteria. Some believe that the transfer of gut bacteria to the liver could be responsible for chronic liver disease.

How Do Probiotics Work?

Probiotics work in many different ways by their production of antimicrobial substances (organic acids, hydrogen peroxide, and bacteriocins) that inhibit pathogen adhesion and degrade toxins produced by microbial invaders. Probiotics resist colonization by competing for binding sites as well as for nutrients with pathogens. In other words, they crowd out pathogens like candida and harmful E. Coli.

Probiotics secrete various proteins that stimulate the immune system both locally and throughout the body, boost intestinal brush border enzyme activity and increase secretory-IgA (a family of antibodies lining mucous membranes). Enzymes like lactase, sucrase, maltase, alpha-glucosidase, and alkaline phosphatase are enhanced by probiotics. Cholesterol and triglyceride blood levels are metabolized and lowered by healthy probiotic populations. Probiotics are able to resist translocation, defined as the passage of pathogens from the GI tract to extraintestinal sites such as the mesenteric lymph node (MLN), spleen, liver, kidneys, and blood.