A lot of people do not know that you can actually change what lives
in your gut? The gut microbiome consists of the community of trillions of
bacteria living in the digestive tract. In fact, 80% of your immune system is
in your microbiome, which affects just about every process, including
digestion, thinking clearly and maintaining a healthy weight.
However, when we think of the slow changes and timely
adjustments to change our eating habits, our weight, our sleep patterns, and
more that usually take months to benefit from, most would assume that changing
the microbiome in the gut would be just another time-consuming dedicated
process. This is not really so. The average lifespan of a bacterium in our
microbiome is 20 minutes! So you have the opportunity every time you eat to
begin to change the population of your gut microbiome.
There are several factors that contribute to a healthy
gut microbiome, including environment, exercise, sleep, and stress. But the
number one factor that determines what microbes live in our gut (and which ones
die off) is our diet. By supporting your microbiome with the foods that are
healthy for you, the microbiota living in your gut will get better at absorbing
and processing nutrients that can affect weight loss, digestion and overall
health.
Adapted from Jennifer Ellis
