Your internal switchboard: Your gut microbiome, hormones, and health.
Much like a switchboard operator used to facilitate communication and patch phone calls to the correct party, hormones have a similar job in your body.
Your organs, tissues, cells, and various body systems need to efficiently and frequently communicate with each other. It’s crucial that the right message gets sent at exactly the right time in the right intensity to the right destination in order for things to work optimally, and for you to feel your best. Hormones are the chemical messengers that relay information throughout your body, coordinating just about every aspect of your health and physiology.
When you’re healthy and in balance, that communication system works with amazing orchestration, enabling all parts of your body to help each other get the job done efficiently. When something has gone awry in your hormonal balance, however, you might experience unpleasant symptoms that sometimes progress into outright disease.
One of the systems most responsible for the production and deployment of hormones is your gut microbiome. When you nourish your microbiome with healthy foods including a fiber-rich diet and fermented foods, it manages the switchboard of your hormone (endocrine) system with precision. When your microbiome is undernourished or fiber-deprived, however, it can create the wrong kinds of hormones at the wrong times — causing chaos throughout the body.
Hormones control metabolism, sexual function, and mood. If hormone levels are too high or too low, it could just be a normal and temporary fluctuation, or it could indicate a more chronic hormone disorder.
Hormones can lead to problems not only when they are in deficiency or excess, but there can also create big problems if the target sites in your body can’t or don’t respond to the hormones the way they’re supposed to.
Hormonal imbalances can occur for many reasons, including life changes like menopause, bouts of extreme stress, environmental factors, and certain medications. But did you know that one of the biggest factors determining the health of your hormonal system is the health of your gut — specifically your gut microbiome, which regulates the levels of many critical hormones in your body!?
There are both beneficial bacterial strains and often a few harmful ones found in the microbiome. The balance of these is important so that these “gut-bugs” can appropriately regulate metabolism, support your immune system, and help you digest food so you can absorb all of the important nutrients.
Nowhere are those little critters more crucial than in their role of supporting your endocrine (hormone) system. Your gut microbes participate in regulating and controlling the levels of reproductive, immune, and metabolic hormones - all verycrucial to your hormonal and overall health!
Factors such as age, lifestyle, and genetics all contribute to the makeup of your microbiome, but one of the biggest determinants is the food you eat. As a result, your microbiome is constantly changing based on what you feed it. The top two things that nourish the beneficial bacteria with love — which will make them stick around and reproduce like crazy — are fiber and fermented foods.
FIBER
Fiber can improve absorption of water and electrolytes, regulate immune function, fight inflammation, and even help suppress tumor growth in the colon. Insoluble fiber does not dissolve in water and adds bulk to the stool, which can help keep bowel movements regular and prevent constipation.
FIBER and CANCER: Among the hormones impacted by fiber intake are the steroidal hormones, such as estrogen and testosterone, which are linked to increased cancers of the reproductive organs. There are several studies showing that diets higher in fiber can help to reduce the risk of breast and prostate cancers.
FIBER and OBESITY: Scientists are discovering that one of the mechanisms by which fiber helps fight obesity is via hormones produced by the gut microbiome. Fiber intake influences ghrelin levels in the body. Ghrelin is a gut hormone produced and released by your stomach. It’s your stomach’s way of telling the brain, “Hey, I’m empty, create the sensation of hunger!” A high fiber intake increases the perception of satiety, helps ghrelin’s message turn on and off appropriately, reduces appetite, and lowers food intake. A 2021 study found that higher fiber intake was also significantly associated with lower leptin. Leptin functions as a counterpart to ghrelin: It’s secreted by fat cells, and signals the brain to decrease sensations of hunger, telling your body “Hey, im satisfied, stop eating”. When leptin levels are high for a long time due to excess bodyfat, the body can stop paying attention to its message of “stop eating” leading to increased eating and propensity toward obesity.
Fiber is in a wide range of fruits, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains, which are all designed to supply your gut microbiome with just what it needs to supply body with the ability live a happy, healthy, and balanced life.
FERMENTED FOODS
Fermented foods provide many health benefits such as anti-oxidant, anti-microbial, anti-fungal, anti-inflammatory, anti-diabetic and anti-atherosclerotic activity.
Here are 5 solid reasons to add fermented foods to your weekly diet:
1. Your stomach can’t digest food alone - Good bacteria help it break down the complex carbohydrates that you eat. You need plenty of fiber and fermented foods to help contribute to the diversity of your gut bacteria, allowing it to optimally break down the foods you eat.
2. The good bacteria fight the bad — and usually win! Every day, you swallow pathogenic (disease-causing) bacteria. You don’t always get sick from it, though, because your “good gut-bugs” take care of it. Good bacteria create acidic fermentation byproducts that lower your intestine’s pH, decreasing the chance that bad bacteria can survive.
3. Your body needs help making certain vitamins. Good bacteria are to thank for synthesizing or producing many of the vitamins your body needs, including vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B12, and K.
4. A healthy body needs balance. The tiny bacteria in your intestine can have full-body effects. Fermented foods help the good bacteria multiply and diversify. Research shows that a less diverse gut microbiome is associated with many chronic disease, such as obesity, asthma and chronic inflammatory conditions.
5. Fermented foods can help restore your gut health after taking antibiotics. Have you ever had diarrhea or other digestive problems after taking antibiotics? That’s because they wipe out both good and bad bacteria. Eating fermented foods can help restore your gut bacteria to normal.
Examples of fermented foods: Sauerkraut, Kimchi, Kombucha, Kefir, Yogurt, Apple Cider Vinegar, Sourdough Bread, and Miso.
Want to learn more about your gut’s microbiome and what it needs to be balanced? Want to learn more about specific healthy eating tips to support your microbiome and gut health? Let’s talk!
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