Understanding how gut bacteria influences your health can be helpful for targeting new probiotic treatments and novel strategies in treating and managing a wide variety of human diseases.  Gut bacteria play an important role in human health, including contributing to the host gut defense system and helping the gut to maintain normal function, and can be influenced dramatically by your lifestyle and diet.  I have personally experienced the benefits of eating to improve gut bacteria in my own life, and have seen the dramatic recovery of migraines and seizures in my daughter through healing the gut and balancing the proper gut bacteria enough to say with confidence that gut bacteria influences your health.

Isn’t Bacteria A Bad Thing?

Bacteria can be potentially harmful when the gut ecosystem undergoes abnormal changes due to the use of antibiotics, illness, stress, aging, bad dietary habits, and lifestyle. Imbalance of the gut bacteria influences your health and can cause many chronic diseases, such as inflammatory bowel disease, obesity, cancer, chronic fatigue, seizures and autism.  The composition of gut bacteria can indicate the risk of diseases in each person.

Gut bacteria are an important component of the microbiota ecosystem in the human gut, which is colonized by 10¹⁴ microbes.  Gut bacteria influences your health and plays an important role in supplying essential nutrients, synthesizing vitamin K, aiding in the digestion of cellulose, and promoting the formation of new blood vessels and intestinal nerve function. Gut bacteria fight against the buildup of disease-causing bacteria by competing for nutrients and attachment sites on the mucosal surface in the colon.

How Does Good Gut Bacteria Work?

The main bacteria in the metabolism of undigested food remnants help to digest dietary fiber and micro-nutrients that we get through certain plant-based foods are packed with antioxidants and potential health benefits.  Friendly bacteria take advantage of the protective and nutrient-rich environment of our bodies, and the specialized gut bacteria perform reactions that reduce harmful things to the body.  Beneficial bacteria and probiotics can promote a strong intestinal barrier which prevent antigens and pathogens from entering the mucosal tissues. Beneficial bacteria can also contribute to the body’s defense by regulating the stability of the immune system.

Good gut bacteria fight against the buildup of disease-causing bacteria by competing for nutrients and attachment sites on the mucosal surface in the colon.  Not only do gut bacteria benefit a person by contributing to their gut defense system, they also help the gut to maintain normal functions. Gut bacteria are beneficial in a variety of ways, such as regulating digestion, producing vitamins, transforming bile acid and steroids, metabolizing foreign substances, absorbing minerals, and activating and destroying toxins, genotoxins (damaging to genetic information), and mutagens (causing a change in the physical, usually DNA).

How Do I Maintain Good Gut Bacteria?

Studies report that long-term and short-term diets influence the composition and function of the gut microbiota in humans.  It was proved that prebiotics could influence the composition of gut bacteria to benefit a person. Prebiotics are defined as a non-digestible food ingredient that beneficially affects the host by selectively stimulating the growth and/or activity of one or a limited number of bacteria in the colon, and thus improving the hosts’ health.  Examples of prebiotics would be onions, garlic, and even banana.

Probiotics, such as bone broth, on the other hand, can be used in the treatment of hepatic encephalopathy, inflammatory bowel diseases, infections, hypertension, cancer, and atopic dermatitis in children.

The proper amount and balance of gut bacteria are essential for the transformation of natural compounds that are present in a wide range of foods, such as flaxseed, vegetables, fruits, and beverages to perform their bio-activities. Proper gut bacteria give protection against cardiovascular diseases, hyperlipidemia, breast cancer, colon cancer, prostate cancer, osteoporosis and menopausal syndrome. Gut bacteria are required for the production and usable effect of the compounds.

Gut bacteria also play an essential role in the metabolism of phytoestrogens — plant-derived compounds with estrogenic activity, similar to mammalian estrogen.  These compounds have protective activity in breast cancer, prostate cancer, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, and menopausal symptoms.

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