You Are What You Eat
How many days do you look at your midsection and wonder what the hell happened?
I started doing that in my late 30s.
I became swollen, and my belly at times would look early pregnant. Of course, these symptoms were worse the second half of my menstrual cycle and I’d pour over the internet wondering what kind of hormonal excuse I could find for my new-found belly fat. I tried supplements, I tried exercise, even hormones wouldn’t budge that damned belly bloat! I blamed medications that I was on and even got off of them to no avail. I then looked to my parents and thought, ‘Crap! I’m turning into my parents!! I’m one decade away from becoming insulin resistant, then frankly diabetic!’ I’m a physician, so this morbid thought didn’t sit well with me. I had to find an answer quick so that I could intervene and stop the inevitable.
If this sounds like your journey, welcome to the club! Let me introduce you to all of the millions of other sufferers of a sick gut biome. In this post, we’ll start the conversation about out gut microbes, the complexity of this primal and essential part of our immune system and what you can do to let healing begin.
First, you may not be aware of the size and extent of your gut. From mouth to anus, adults have 30 feet of guts. Our gut is lined by varying kinds of cells and mucus layers as well as varying types of enzymes, acids, bases, emulsifying chemicals, bacteria and fungus that allow us to do this thing called “digestion” and protect us from foreign invaders in our foodstuff. Before we even taste food, digestion begins with hormones released as we visualize and smell food. 90% of your feel-good hormone serotonin is produced in the gut, thus the “mind-gut connection” everyone’s buzzing about. In addition, 60% of your body’s immune cells dwell in the gut. Here’s an estimation of the hoards of microbes found in your gut:
Those bacteria help us in a symbiotic fashion to digest our food and produce necessary vitamins and co-factors we need to do chemical reactions in our bodies. It is out of the scope of this writing to explore all the origins of our gut microbiome, but it is generally understood to be inherited from your birth mother. As babies travel down the birth canal and nurse from mother’s breast, vaginal and skin microbes are passed on to colonize the infant’s gut. A fascinating article examining infantile origins of the human microbiome in vaginal vs. cesarean birth and the development of chronic disease is found here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3110651/
Lastly, there’s interesting interplay in cell-cell signaling that occurs between our gut microbes and our mitochondria. Mitochondria are sub-cellular organelles that produce energy in each cell. They also have startling similarity with bacteria, and in the 1960’s scientist Lynn Margulis hypothesized that mitochondria were once bacteria that found hosts in prokaryotic cells and established a symbiotic relationship living inside of them that has been perpetuated through millions of years of evolution. We once thought mitochondria were only power-plants for our cells, taking the breakdown products of food (glucose and ketone bodies) and producing ATP energy for cells to run. Now, evidence has been mounting in support that cell signalling (cell to cell talk) is platformed and staged, even orchestrated on each cell’s mitochodria. The mitochondria signal for immunity, programmed cell death as well as autophagy (see more on autophagy in my post about Intermittent Fasting). How well each of these processes occurs may determine whether or not you develop disease.
So what does this have to do with belly bloat and obesity?
Well, interestingly enough, the type of bacteria that inhabit the gut can determine whether or not you develop obesity, chronic inflammatory conditions and even cancer. Studies on the bacterial milieu of thin and obese subjects has been studied in mammals (including humans) and it has concluded that there are defined differences between the two. Even fecal transplants between the two have yielded the opposing effects on the transplantee, meaning obese microbes transplanted into thin people make them fat, and vice versa. Is this a chicken and egg phenomenon? Studies are on-going, but common sense tells me you are what you eat.
Take for instance what is consumed by most obese folks: The Standard American Diet. Rife with carbohydrates and poor in high quality fats, the SAD can be blamed for the USA producing the youngest, fattest, sickest generation that for the first time will not outlive their predecessors. The following review article explains the paucity of bacterial diversity in obese individuals may be their digestive downfall : https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-gut-bacteria-help-make-us-fat-and-thin/
A mainstay of treatment in my clinic is to tamp down inflammation. At its deepest level, most every disease known to man is inflammatory in nature. Most of the genetic, cellular biology and molecular biologic studies of the past 30 years have been focused on unravelling the secrets of inflammation and the immune system. Per the discussion above, I hope it’s glaringly apparent that one of the easiest modifiable sources of inflammation is what goes in your gut: food.
Food as medicine is no new idea, and it is fascinating to me how quickly people begin to heal chronic illness when the right anti-inflammatory eating regimen is followed. I’m partial to the ketogenic diet because it’s powerful and swift in its control of insulin and blood sugar as well as gut bloat. Think about it: when you stop feeding the bad bugs, their gassy and inflammatory metabolic by-products go away immediately! Other diets that work well are a strict Paleo diet and the Mediterranean Diet, as long as each are high in good fats. I use a variety of factors in selecting the right diet for each individual, so if you need help choosing what is the best way for you to eat, ask a qualified physician.
In conclusion, when you’re ready to say “bye-bye” to gut bloat, leaky gut, IBS, diabetes, auto-immune disease or chronic pain look no further than your pantry or refrigerator for the cure to what ails you. If the inventory of your shelves is primarily pre-packaged carbohydrate, you’re losing the war. Switch to a gut-friendly, anti-inflammatory diet immediately and watch the healing begin!
Have you been healed by changing what you eat? Leave a comment below that might encourage another to change!
Cheers!
Dr. Lydia