In my last blog, Obesogens - Does the Environment Make You Fat?, I talked about how our environment has a direct impact on how fat we have become. The environment I discussed included our water, air, and food. There's another environment that has a huge impact on our health and weight, but it's not something we can see, and most don't want to discuss it. There is a whole ecosystem that has been ignored by traditional medicine for years that is now gaining popularity in conventional circles. That ecosystem is made up of all kinds of microscopic critters that live in your gut; it's called our microflora.
In each of our digestive tracts there are literally trillions of bacteria, fungi, and possibly even parasites. We carry these around from birth, and they have a direct impact on our health. I have worked with patients for almost two decades on balancing the microflora to enhance health. In the natural community, we have seen this ecosystem as playing a vital role in health for a long time. It seems medicine is finally catching up.
Based on sheer numbers, we are more a bacterial holding pond than we are human being. There are 10 times more microbes in our intestinal tract than there are cells in our bodies, encompassing over 1000 species and having 150 times more genes than our own genome. We have isolated 3.3 million unique genes of these bacteria, where we have less than 30,000. There's a lot more of them than there is of us, and our bodies are constantly in a state of reacting to what's growing down there. Some species, like Lactobacillis and Bifidobacter have been shown to have tremendous health benefits. Others, like certain strains of E. coli and Klebsiella can cause us great distress. New evidence is showing that depending on what we have a predominance of, it can be a deciding factor on whether we end up fat.
Research has shown that the majority of the bugs in our gut belong to one of two classes, either Firmicutes or Bacteriodetes, and if you have a predominance of Firmicutes, it can directly lead to increased fat deposition.
One theory that has been purported is that strains of Firmicutes can digest foods that we normally can't, and make extra calories available. Basically, they increase the amount of available calories in your food. This seems to be most notable in those that have higher fat diets.
Another theory looks at how part of the bacterial cell wall ends up in our blood stream and acts as a hormone. Certain parts of these bacteria (called endotoxins) seem to interact directly with fat cell signaling, leaving us more prone to make more fat cells and store more fat. They also can interact with blood sugar regulation and insulin signaling, leading to increased blood sugar and higher risks of developing diabetes and cardiovascular disease. This theory follows the same thoughts as what I discussed in Obesogens, which outlined the basic tenets of obesogens and talked briefly about xenoestrogens. While some of the toxins I mentioned in that blog are ubiquitous in our environment, the Firmicutes are just as ubiquitous in our gut.
The final theory looks at how these endotoxins create inflammation in the body, and the dysfunction associated with that. Inflammation is a huge problem in our society, and most of it is caused by the choices we make. Foods like grains, dairy, and soy are generally highly inflammatory to us, and can lead to a variety of health problems, ranging from MS and rheumatoid arthritis to diabetes and heart disease. Inflammation is one of the biggest health problems we face, and it has yet to be focused on by mainstream medicine. What we are seeing, is that the endotoxins create an inflammatory response, not only within our fat tissue, but also within our livers and blood vessels.
Regardless of the pathways involved, the research is definitely showing a link between our microflora composition and our weight. Fortunately, this is something we can have a dramatic impact on without much difficulty. While conventional thought would just have us eating more yogurt, that just simply isn't good enough. It comes down to a balance of good guys vs bad guys. If you look at a crime riddled neighborhood, how many upstanding citizens would you have to bring in before you would start to outnumber the bad guys? Normally, we'd want the cops to clean out the neighborhood first, before we just repopulate with good guys. The same has to happen in our gut. Yogurt manufacturers are trying to convince the public that if you eat their product, you'll have plenty of good bacteria in your gut. However, research is becoming more clear that to repopulate effectively, we must use extremely high doses of the good guys, called them probiotics. Yogurt is lucky to have a few million live cultures. To be effective, I will use products that start in the 20 billion, and some that go as high as 225 billion live cultures per serving. You can't just add a few good guys here and there, you have to add so many that there is no room left for the bad guys.
Before I even think of adding probiotics into a treatment though, I want to see exactly what the makeup of the current microflora is. Is there a problem with yeast overgrowth? Are we seeing a pathological bacteria that we need to eradicate? This is where it is important to work with someone who understands how to effectively assess and treat the micorflora. In today's world, that isn't a gastroenterologist, it's a clinical nutritionist.
Obesity is a rapidly growing problem in our country, and unless the public is willing to step outside of conventional medicine and look at balancing and healing their bodies naturally, it will continue to accelerate. Balancing the microflora in the gut can have a profound effect on your health and your weight. With the help of a competent clinical nutritionist, you can achieve amazing health. It's never too late to start.
Look for future blogs that will give more information and insights into improving your health with natural health care. You can also visit my website, like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
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