I think there are two things that can not be neglected in anyone’s life, no matter who we are, where we live and what we do for a living.
The first is our health and second is how much money we have or we make.
It doesn’t matter whether we care about these two things or not, these two things always come and touch our lives in different ways.
Let’s put it this way.
Can we preview the next year ahead?
Did we see that covid-19 was coming in 2020 when we were in 2018 or 2019?
The point is that we cannot predict what kind of health crisis is coming into our lives tomorrow.
Because it is very difficult to wrap our heads around how this thing called the human body works, how these complex biological and chemical systems are working all day and all night. But there are certainly things in our body which we can all learn from to live a healthy life.
Among many things, one part is the microbiome, which was ignored or not understood before but getting a lot of focus in research recently.
Up to now human health is typically taught as a symptom based approach, where we take the symptoms and plug it into a treatment and we expect a solution.
But there is a huge gap between symptoms and treatment because in general by the time we get symptoms of any disease, it is already too late to recover.
And that’s why I’m bringing up this piece of content about the microbiome in our body and its role in our health as a fundamental health endeavor.
When we become an informed healthy citizen, we become aware not only of how health problems and concerns appear but also how we can take actions to benefit from these new research findings around microbiome.
Global picture: chronic diseases and microbiome
Since the last many years obesity rates have consistently skyrocketed among adults and especially among children.
At the moment, more than 42 percent of American adults are obese and the number is constantly going up.
We are suffering from type 2 diabetes that is affecting many of our lives and the American heart association predicts that 45 percent of people in the US will have heart disease by the year 2035. This data is alarming and needs some kind of immediate action.
Not only diabetes, early cancer is dramatically increasing across the world, and the US is in the front line.
Someone in the US is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease every single minute and Parkinson’s disease is threatening worldwide as the fastest growing neurological disorder on the planet.
“All these diseases are directly or indirectly related to auto-immunity, leaky gut, and intestinal dysbiosis. They all stem directly from the gut. And gut chemistry is directly related to the microbiome,” says Dr. Steven Gundry, a cardiologist, heart surgeon, medical researcher, and author.
Inside our digestive system there is a galaxy consisting of trillions of bacteria belonging to thousands of different species with many viruses, fungi, and other microbes.
All these microbes have more than three million genes whereas the human genome has only twenty three thousand genes.
This means we have our genes in our body but we also have microbiome genes. The reality is the majority of genes in our body are not our genes but the bacterial genes.
If for some reason bacterial diversity is imbalanced, bacterial genes are also imbalanced then our suffering from many diseases starts.
Let’s put these microbes in our head to compare how big they are.
We have eight billion people and approximately three trillion trees are expected on earth. But there are more of these bacteria and other species in our body than people and plants combined in the universe.
Now the question is what do these trillions of bacteria do inside our body?
Inside our gut, they break down everything we eat into amino acids, fatty acids, sugar molecules with the help of stomach acid and enzymes.
These molecules then approach the gut lining to exit the gut and enter our bloodstream.
Our relationship with microbiomes is symbiotic, so if we help them to grow and nourish then only they will help us to remain healthy.
When our microbiomes are well balanced and well nourished, they ferment essential compounds which keep us healthy and also protect themselves so that they can take care of our body.
In addition to all of their many jobs, the metabolites created by the gut microbiome act as signaling molecules that regulate our appetite, immunity, and aging.
When our microbiomes are affected and out of balance, our immune system is also affected, our hormone levels fluctuate, our mental health and longevity suffer.
Due to this imbalance and destruction in microbiomes by many reasons of our modern lifestyle, there are increased risks of developing autoimmune, heart, and neurodegenerative diseases including arthritis, diabetes, and cancer.
Here is one simple example of how important microbiomes are.
Recent research showed that people with obesity have an imbalanced ratio of bacteria in the gut. Obese people have limited microbial diversity with less Bateroidetes and more Firmicutes, which are two main kinds of bacteria.
Metformin, the common medication used to control type 2 diabetes, works not by lowering our blood sugar but by improving our gut diversity and this drug also increases the abundance of Akkermansia, one type of good bacteria in our gut.
Metformin is also a mTOR suppressor in our body.
Let me tell you a little bit of science here, mTOR means mammalian target of rapamycin, when it feels that there is energy to spare it excites the growth hormone IGF1 which is insulin-like growth factor 1 that leads cells to grow and if mTOR feels like there is no energy available, it restricts the production of IGF1 and inhibits the growth.
Therefore, it’s always good to suppress mTOR to protect our health.
Microbiome, mitochondria and polyphenols: the intricate relationship
We all know mitochondria from high school biology which convert our food into ATP (adenosine triphosphate) which is our cellular energy house.
The information mitochondria receive is from our microbiome which directly affects how much energy mitochondria produce. Our mitochondria is powerful, it can produce 32 molecules of ATP for every molecule of glucose.
Mitochondria uses glucose as a vehicle’s gasoline and fat as charge on battery. When gasoline is finished mitochondria use fat to run the human engine as stored energy.
Mitogenesis is the addition of more mitochondria in a cell and under certain circumstances, a cell will make more mitochondria to handle the workload.
The interesting fact is mitochondria have their own DNA and can divide when they need to, regardless of what the rest of the cell is doing.
There are only two ways to make more mitochondria either by fasting or by exercising.
Generally at night, the repair of mitochondria occurs and our body also makes ketones at night and they inform mitochondria to repair and produce more of it.
Now let’s talk a little bit about polyphenol compounds, why they are so important.
The polyphenol compounds, which are antioxidants and found in colored fruits and vegetables like berries, pomegranates, walnuts can only protect our mitochondria if microbiomes absorb them.
So, the bottom line is, even if we eat different kinds of colored fruits and vegetables which contain many polyphenols, our body cannot absorb polyphenols directly, we need microbiomes to help us to make them absorbable by our body.
The chemistry of the microbiome is so delicate that it always needs a balanced diversified microbiome.
Microbiomes normally activate polyphenols to make beneficial signaling molecules that’s what we want but if the microbiome is imbalanced and not diversified, the same polyphenols might work against us by increasing the risk of developing some kind of cancers.
All dark colored fruits and vegetables which contain polyphenols work as a double sword: they protect mitochondria and they also repair DNA in our cells through activating Sirtuin1(SIR1) an enzyme in cell nucleus.
Resveratrol is another type of polyphenol which is found in red wine that decreases the risk of cardiovascular disease, inhibits memory loss, and increases lifespan.
Recent study shows that in cancer cells, polyphenols actually increase oxidative stress and drive tumor cells into apoptosis.
The same resveratrol is toxic to cancer cells and shows antiproliferative properties.
Resveratrol also activates sestrin genes that also activates Sirtuin1 to repair and protect cellular DNA. Sirtuin1 is used to suppress mTOR.
Again the truth is, polyphenols work only if our gut microbes digest them for us.
Flavonoids, another group of polyphenols, help to reshape gut microbiomes to tackle cancer. Here again, gut microbiomes digest flavonoids and help to inhibit carcinogenesis.
Quercetin, another flavonoid found in berries, onions, grapes, broccoli, and citrus fruits also activates sestrin and inhibits mTOR.
Independent of Sirtuin1 and resveratrol, there are other polyphenols that activate AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), an enzyme that activates glucose and fat uptake by mitochondria so they can produce more energy.
Another important polyphenol is called ellagitannins which are found in berries, pomegranates, walnuts.
Microbiomes use ellagitannins to produce a metabolite called UrolithinA, which increases lifespan through mitophagy and mitogenesis.
Mitophagy is the recycling of old and damaged mitochondria and mitogenesis is the creation of new mitochondria.
Even if we eat all the good foods like berries, pomegranates, and walnuts, if we don’t have good microbiomes in our body, we cannot produce UrolithinA from polyphenols.
So please, understand the intricate relationship between polyphenol and microbiome and why we should eat foods containing polyphenols and why the microbiomes are involved in the process.
So the cycle is that polyphenols regulate our biological and chemical system and microbiomes activate polyphenols and use them as signaling devices to our cells.
Conclusion
The first thing is we have to maintain the diversity of the microbiome by our own efforts: proper diet and exercise, sound sleep, and periodic fasting.
We must eat healthy foods, especially natural foods containing high amounts of polyphenols, fermented foods, and antioxidants. We also need enough vitamin D from sunlight, and the fact is if we don’t have the diversified microbiome, we can not synthesize vitamin D.
We must maintain our stress level because it imbalances the diversity of the microbiome which creates problems in the gut and that triggers inflammation and neuroinflammation.
Inflammation and neuroinflammation are the causes of multiple diseases in our body.
So now let’s remember Hippocrates, the Greek physician of the fifth century BC, who said “all diseases begin in the gut.”
So, please, let’s protect our microbiome and, they protect our health.
Jeffrey Gordon, MD, distinguished Professor of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, the most influential human microbiome scientist working today says “you are what you — and your microbes — eat.”
Yam Timsina, PhD, writes primarily on health basics, scientific progress, social upliftment, and value creation.