What is the Gut Microbiome, and Why Is it Important?

All this talk about microbiome, gut flora, prebiotics, probiotics...what does it all mean, and how important is it to our health? Learn all this and ways to foster that perfect balance. Show Notes: https://bit.ly/47oumUj

In this Episode:

• 03:33 - Ways to Die in the Future - A Near Earth Asteroid
• 08:03 - Recipe of the Week: Hummus
• 09:52 - Understanding the Microbiome and its Role
• 41:15 - A Diversified Microbiome
• 45:45 - Outro

Magnificent Microbes!

As we continue our series about ways to slow our march toward the end of life, our topic this week is about our microbiome. You have probably heard of this term, but may wonder what it means and how it applies to you. 

Our gut microbiome are microbes, and their genetic material is found in our gastrointestinal tract. Bacteria in our gut affect everything from our digestion to our mental health. 

What does Our Microbiome do for Us?

Marianne shares the evolution of our microbiome and how it develops diversity. This is important because different bacteria help us digest food, produce vitamins, increase absorption, helps our immunity, and prevent bad bacteria from taking over.

Why is Balance Important?

When something disrupts the balance, such as antibiotics, it can allow "opportunistic growth" of organisms such as Clostridium difficile (C. diff), a germ that causes diarrhea and colitis.

How to Increase your Gut Diversity

We talk about several ways to foster diversity in your microbiome. Listen for several tips!

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 3:33 Ways to Die in the Future: Near-Earth Asteroid
• 8:03 Recipe of the Week: Hummus
• 9:52 Understanding the Microbiome and its Role
• 41:15 A Diversified Microbiome
• 45:56 Outro

Transcript

What-is-the-Gut-Microbiome-and-Why-is-it-Important

This podcast does not provide medical nor legal advice. Please listen to the complete disclosure at the end of the recording. Hello and welcome to Everyone Dies, the podcast where we talk about serious illness, dying, death, and bereavement.

I'm Marian Matzo, a nurse practitioner and I used my experience from working as a nurse for 46 years to help answer your questions about what happens at the end of life. And I'm Charlie Navarette, an actor in New York City and here to offer an every person viewpoint to our podcast. We are both here because we believe that the more you know, the better prepared you are to make difficult decisions before a crisis hits.

So welcome to this week's show. Please relax and get yourself some kabucha and an arugula romaine and pear smoothie bowl. And thank you for spending the next hour with Charlie and me as we begin a new series about how food affects health and our lifespan.

Like the BBC, we see our show as offering entertainment, enlightenment, and education and divide that into three halves to address each of these goals. Our main topic is in the second half, so feel free to fast forward to that chat-free zone if you need to. In our first half, Charlie continues his series of ways to die in the future and has our recipe of the week.

In the second half, I'm going to talk about our microbiome and how it affects our health. And in the third half, Charlie has six ways to boost our microbiome. So Charlie, how are you? Well, Marianne, jumping up and clicking my heels as it were.

The episode that you wrote and presented to everyone about what you need to know about breathing at the end of life is our number one of all time. Congratulations. Well, it really has been the number one of all time, but it just reached 15,000 downloads.

15,000. And really, it's just, I mean, just everything you described about it, you know, what you need to know about breathing at the end of life, I just never gave it a thought. Until you, of course.

Until you. Congratulations. That's great.

Well, congratulations to you, Charles. And the other thing, were you aware that August is National Make-A-Will Month? No. Me neither.

So I was just, I don't know, I just came up in the news. And so, folks, ladies and gentlemen, we're always advocating that, you know, prepare, do things in advance. So this is the perfect time to write your will and make your wishes known.

On paper. It only takes about 20 minutes to write or upgrade your legal will. And you can do this for free.

We will have links to a simple will and a more complicated will in our show notes. So please take care of that, you know, for yourself and for your loved ones. Excellent plan.

It'll make it so much easier for you. Yes. In our first half, in 2016, NASA sent a craft called OSIRIS-REx on the first ever asteroid return mission to near-Earth asteroid Bennu.

Because Bennu's basic composition would have been established during the first 10 million years of the solar system, it could hold the keys to understanding the origins of life. But NASA also chose to study the 1,650-foot-wide asteroid for a different reason. Because it could collide with our home planet in the late 22nd century.

Now, that might sound intimidating, but there's only a 0.037% chance Bennu will actually hit the Earth, according to NASA. And if Bennu did beat the odds, we're not talking about an asteroid that could destroy the Earth, or OSIRIS-REx principal investigator Dante Loretto told Space.com. We're not anywhere near that kind of energy for an impact. So what if Bennu was bigger? Like, a lot bigger.

Imagine an asteroid six miles across, the size of the one thought to have killed off the dinosaurs was heading our way. In 2017, the journal Geophysical Research Letters published an analysis of simulated asteroid impacts and how they'd affect human populations. The paper cited several potential threats.

Wind blast, overpressure shock, thermal radiation, cratering, seismic shaking, ejecta deposition, and tsunami. One of the big takeaways, death by asteroid-induced tsunami is less of a threat than they originally thought. Instead, 60% of all simulated asteroid deaths in the study were caused by wind and pressure.

An asteroid six miles wide would approach the Earth at about 19 miles per second, according to Britt Scherringhausen, associate professor and department chair of physics and astronomy at Beloit College. Nothing can slow it down. Instead, it will punch through the atmosphere like it's hardly even there, Scherringhausen says.

Whether the asteroid hits land or sea, it'll vaporize a crust, resulting in a massive crater, more than 62 miles of rock will be jettisoned into the air, and some of the debris will even reach space. The pressure alone could rupture your internal organs, while a wind blast could wreak all sorts of havocs on buildings, cars, and living tissues. Unless you're really resourceful or very lucky, you'll probably end up dying in the initial catastrophe.

If for any reason you don't, you'll meet your final demise in the upcoming years due to lack of food or the fiery, ash raining atmosphere that blocks out the sun for at least a year. Luckily, NASA and FEMA are preparing for any sort of asteroid impact scenario. Given enough lead time, researchers could knock an asteroid off its crash course with the Earth, or maybe Viola Davis will be available to assist.

What a way to go. Didn't they have a scenario not so long ago where they blasted an asteroid off its course? Was it that they blasted it? Shoot. Either they blasted it off its course, or did they break it up into a smaller... No, I think... Yes, they did.

Yes. Something landed on it, and it literally pushed it off its course. Yes, you're right.

Is that exciting? That is. Maybe we can cross this off our list of ways to die. All right, hang on here.

It's not exactly a bucket list, but... Yes. A list of things to worry about. One less thing to worry about, exactly.

All right, I'm going to make a note of this right now. Okay, very good. Carry on.

As any potential bad boy asteroid comes our way, you'll want to enjoy a little snack. Our recipe for this week is hummus, which will help the microbiome of the people attending your next funeral lunch diversify. The main ingredient in hummus is chickpeas, which are high in soluble fiber.

The soluble fiber forms a gel-like substance in the gut, which improves the consistency of bowel movements and supports healthy bacterial growth. Yeah, that's a nice image. Bon appetit.

Hey, the older you get, the more important your poopies are. No shit. Don't you find that to be true? Well, actually, yes.

I've been very fortunate. Bowel movements has never been an issue for me. Well, thank you for sharing.

Absolutely. It's one thing I can cross off my list of worrying about you. There we are, yes.

Please go to our webpage for this week's recipe for hummus and additional resources for this program. Everyone Dies is offered at no cost, but is not free to produce. Please contribute what you can.

Your tax-deductible gift will go directly to supporting our nonprofit journalism so that we can remain accessible to everyone. You can also donate at www.everyonedies.org or at our website on Patreon, www.patreon.com and search for Everyone Dies. And folks, our website, www.thenumberonedies.org. Marianne? Thanks, Charlie.

So microbes play an important role in human health and disease. Our first exposure to microbes, which are these invisible single-cell organisms that make up 60% of the Earth's living matter, things like bacteria, fungi, viruses. So our first exposure occurs at birth.

During pregnancy, a growing fetus exists in a sterile environment, in the uterus. Once the amniotic sac ruptures, the infant's exposure to microbes begins. If the baby is delivered vaginally, the infant is exposed to the microbes in the vaginal canal, which become part of their own gut microbiome.

Babies born by cesarean delivery don't have this exposure and may be prescribed preventative antibiotics until they do have exposure. Some of the first microbes the baby is exposed to in the vaginal canal aid breast milk digestion. Bacteria in the gut produce vitamin K, which aids blood clotting.

Newborns don't initially produce their own vitamin K, so they receive a shot until they can. Essential fatty acids needed for brain development result from bacteria digesting fibers. As a child grows, the gut microbiome becomes more varied.

And to stay healthy, it needs to stay current with whatever environment that they are in. As always, let's lay a basis for this discussion. Our gastrointestinal tracts are made up of trillions of microbes.

These living cells are what make up our microbiome, which is made by our DNA, our external environment, and our diet. The microbiome's composition is unique to each individual and not only gives information about our current health status, including our emotional well-being, but also how well we will age and the likelihood of developing chronic disease later in life. The critical role of the microbiome is not surprising when considering that there are as many microbes as there are human cells in the body.

The human microbiome is diverse in each body site. For example, the gut, the skin, the mouth, and nose cavities has a different community of microbiomes. Our microbiome are microbes, and their genetic material is found in our gastrointestinal tract.

Bacteria in our gut affect everything from our digestion to our mental health. The gut microbiome controls the storage of fat and assists in activating the genes in human cells involved with absorbing nutrients, breaking down toxins, and creating blood vessels. These help microorganisms replenish the linings of the gut and skin, replacing damaged and dying cells with new ones.

Equally vital is their role in preventing illness. Differences in the microbiome may lead to different health effects from environmental exposures. It may also help determine individuals' vulnerability to certain illnesses.

Environmental exposures can also disrupt a person's microbiome in ways that could increase the likelihood of developing conditions such as diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular and neurological diseases, allergies, and inflammatory bowel disease. The gut microbiome produces essential enzymes, neurotransmitters, and vitamins. For instance, vitamin B1, required to convert carbohydrates to energy, is made by gut microbes and absorbed into the bowel with the help of other microbes.

Microbes that we have in our body are called normal flora. So if you've ever heard anybody say, well, their normal flora was disrupted, usually you hear that maybe in a hospital, that's what they're talking about. The human microbiome, the total of all microorganisms that live in or on our body, are our normal flora.

We need to keep them to keep other bacteria or yeast from taking over our body. So let me give you an example. I know that any of you that have ever been into the hospital or have surgery have heard of C. diff.

So C. diff is a highly contagious bacteria that causes diarrhea and inflammation of the intestinal lining. The diarrhea from C. diff has a distinct odor, and for some people, it can be really hard to treat. And I can tell you, working in oncology, you know, we'd have some people who would get extreme diarrhea, and I could walk by their room.

I mean, I would always send the stool down for culture, but I could walk by and smell it and say, okay, I think he's got C. diff. It just has a very distinct odor, and it's not a good one. It often affects people who recently have taken antibiotics.

Antibiotics that kill other bacteria in your gut won't kill C. diff, which allows C. diff to quickly grow out of control. You have to take a different antibiotic to treat C. diff, and that does not always work. In the United States, half a million infections causes 15,000 deaths per year.

15,000 deaths from the microbiome being out of whack because of C. diff, and that doesn't account for all the other kinds of infections that get out of whack because of the things we do or don't do. Many diseases associated with the gut microbiome are expressed by continual low-grade inflammation, and we did a show on inflammation. If you want to know more about that, take a listen to that, because that's really an important part of health also.

The gut microbiome plays a significant role in triggering or calming the immune system's inflammatory responses. For example, microbes use fermentation of dietary non-digestible fiber to develop short-chain fatty acids. You might read about SCFAs, which have anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory properties.

The microbe either keeps the immune system in balance or weakens the immune system, triggers inflammation, which can lead to autoimmune disorders. So the goal is to have a healthy gut microbiome. Factors like your diet, infections, and certain medications can affect its balance.

Having an unhealthy gut microbiome can lead to certain diseases and affect your mental health. But how do you know if your gut is healthy? It's healthy if there's normal composition of the microbiome, adequate digestion and absorption of food, the absence of gut illnesses, and an effective immune status. One way we can alter our microbiomes is by what we eat.

But Charlie, why do we need to care about our gut microbiome? I was going to tell you because I didn't think you would know. Do you know? No. Okay.

Your intestinal tract is your largest immune system organ, with about 80% of your immune-producing cells living there. When the gut microbiome is not balanced, disease risk is higher. A gut that's rich in healthy bacteria may help reduce the risk of inflammatory diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease, irritable bowel syndrome, obesity, and colon cancer.

There is new research about how an unhealthy microbiome can cause heart or liver disease and contribute to diabetes. An imbalance of healthy and unhealthy microbes and their function is known as gut dysbiosis. Some common symptoms may include constipation, diarrhea, bloating, fatigue, or acid reflux and heartburn.

If you have gut dysbiosis, it may be linked to other conditions like diabetes, obesity, inflammatory bowel disease, and irritable bowel syndrome. Now, we're going to talk about nutrition, but I would bet that you've all heard of probiotics and prebiotics, and you've probably said to yourself, I don't really know what they are and I don't know what the difference between them, but that's why I'm here. Yes.

Probiotics. Now, these are live microorganisms isolated from humans and then cultured in a lab to be used as a supplement. These live microbes that contribute to the normal flora of the body.

When we ingest them, whether in food or supplement form, they survive in the gut and provide benefits to us like good bacteria that we naturally have. These healthy microbes fight off harmful bacteria, viruses, and fungus. So my daughter was a senior in college.

I got a call that she was having neck pain. She went to the ER. They did a spinal tap and, not the band, but the puncture, and they said that she had meningitis.

So I drove very quickly, a couple of hours to where she was at school. They did, of course, admitted her to the hospital, and things did not take the normal course of how that disease should go. And she ran into a few different problems, and they weren't able to culture what it was that was contributing or causing the meningitis.

So for a child who had been breastfed and not given antibiotics her entire life, at the age of 21, they were running bags of every different kind of antibiotic because they weren't able to isolate what it was that was causing the problem for her. And I thought, well, you've just made up for 21 years of no antibiotics. And when the infectious disease doctor came in, I said, can we start her on some probiotics because this is going to really mess with her body.

Because what happens when you're running in all those different kinds of high-dose antibiotics is that it kills your normal flora. And your normal flora, as I told you, is there to keep everything else in check. So when you kill the bad bacteria, you're killing the good or normal flora in the body.

And then what happens is that people can get thrush, which is a yeast infection of the mouth. If you've ever seen people with a really white, cakey, swollen tongue, that's thrush. That's because that yeast has taken over because the normal flora that's to fight the yeast is not there to do its job.

You can get yeast infections, vaginal yeast infections for the same reason. You can get really bad diarrhea because the reason we don't have diarrhea constantly is because we have a normal flora in our bodies that keeps all of that under control. You get urinary tracts.

The whole body can just be really messed up with taking antibiotics. And the infections disease doctor looked at me and he said, oh, well, that's a good idea. And I thought, oh, good God.

Okay. And then we also went to the store and we got her kabocha. And not that she liked that, but we said, you really need to drink this because what could happen without it is way worse.

And fortunately, even with all those antibiotics running into her, she never got any other secondary, what we call secondary infections from the normal flora being destroyed. So whenever you take an antibiotic for anything, at a minimum, if you get yogurt with active yogurt cultures in it, you got to read the label because a lot of yogurt is a lot of sugar and it doesn't always have the active yogurt cultures. And Greek yogurt tends to have a larger percentage of active yogurt cultures.

Be sure to eat a yogurt every day while you're on an antibiotic and that can keep your normal flora alive while you're taking the antibiotic. So those are probiotics. Those are the actual microorganisms that we can take either in food or a supplement form that'll survive in the gut and help our good bacteria live.

Then there's what are called prebiotics. Prebiotics, this is a food source for the friendly bacteria in your intestinal tract. Our digestive system can't break down prebiotics, so they survive the journey through the digestive tract.

They eventually reach the part of the colon where the friendly bacteria hang out. The bacteria break down the prebiotics into nutrition that are converted into vitamins and enzymes. You can also take a supplement that's called symbiotics, which is a combination of probiotic and prebiotic.

I'll talk about that in a minute. So just so you know, if you see something that says symbiotics, what it is is it's got both probiotic and prebiotics in it. Now, whether your diet consists of flaming hot Cheetos and Pepsi or you live with a chronic disease, a probiotic supplement has the potential to help restore your gut to optimum health.

And there are a lot of different supplements, probiotic supplements that are available on the market. So gut health starts with prebiotics. You can buy prebiotic supplements, but you don't need them if you eat foods that fortify the army of friendly bacteria in your intestines.

So your microbiome, there's foods that it really, really likes. What you're looking for are fiber rich foods, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, things that have a lot of fiber in it. Potatoes, ideally a boiled and cooled potato since the starch is more resistant to digestion.

Bananas, green, less ripe bananas are rich in this resistant starch. And you can also buy banana starch. Well, I get mine on Amazon.

And what I do is I put that in my morning smoothie because that can also have really good benefits for your gut and could also stabilize your insulin and help manage inflammation. And then the fourth thing that your microbiome really likes are Jerusalem artichokes. And this is a root vegetable that's rich in prebiotic inulin.

So prebiotics, you want to think about have a lot of fiber in them. So prebiotic foods are those non-digestible substances that feed the healthy gut bacteria. So like I said, sources are fruits, vegetable, legumes, grains, foods like artichokes, asparagus, bananas, barley, beans, berries, chicory root, flax, garlic, leafy greens, oatmeal, onion, rye, and wheat.

The prebiotics, you want to think about them as fermented foods. These bacteria feed off fiber and aid in digestion. And prebiotic foods, fermented foods, are things like buttermilk, fermented vegetables, kefir, kimchi, kombucha, miso, sauerkraut, sourdough, tempeh, yogurt with live cultures.

Remember, read your labels. A probiotic in a capsule may not survive while sitting on the grocery store shelf or passing through the intestinal tract. But when you combine it with its food source, the prebiotic, it's in a much better shot.

It has a much better shot at staying viable until it reaches the part of the gut where it's going to live. So if you're not going to eat your prebiotics and probiotics, if you need to take a supplement, consider choosing a product that has a seal of approval from testing agencies like Consumer Reports or Consumer Labs, a probiotic capsule that's packaged with inulin or other prebiotics, or a probiotic in spore form which can survive on the shelf or the digestive tract. Now, when I was looking for my supplement, of course, you know, I shop on Amazon.

Not proud of it, but I do do it. And so I was able to read all of the descriptions of what was in there. So it makes it a lot easier to go through.

You can even search with probiotic with inulin, and it'll give you a list. Make sure you read through. And you want to get your supplement, you want to have one that is both probiotic and prebiotic, that has the highest trillions of microbes in it.

And so that would make that a symbiotic product. And then like I said, make sure that it has a seal of approval and inulin with your probiotic. But it's best to get your probiotics and prebiotics from a healthy diet.

Be sure to tune in next week when we'll be talking about the diseases that can result from an unhealthy biome. And we're talking about all of this so that think about it as things that you don't need to die from.

There are things that can keep you healthy and that don't need to be the cause of your death. So look at it that way. Charlie, any questions? Wow, that was, that's, yeah, I'm still taking notes, Marianne.

I know we've covered this before, but it's just keeping things, well, let's say, well, I love to snack, but I've gotten better at not snacking all the time and actually reading labels, which I occasionally ignore. Do you do what I do is like read the label and say, it has that many calories? Oh my God. Where's my spoon? Yeah, I do that all the time, Marianne, sure.

No, what I, what, you know what, if I read a label, and I actually am more careful reading labels now, if it's too much sugar and too much salt, that I recognize immediately. And, and I will avoid that as much as I can. Of course, I could avoid it 100%.

I choose not to, which is not smart, but I am much more careful now to not have a steady diet of that. The other thing, I start reading all these ingredients I have never heard of. And yeah, again, I'm just much more careful now, not to put all that crap into my body all the time.

And, you know, go ahead and shoot me if I say this. I, for me, it's, it's moderation. I've been health wise, I've been pretty lucky, you know, most of my life.

I'm sorry, I still enjoy my occasional, you know, nacho Doritos with melted cheese on it. But I'm careful not to do that every day. So for me, it's moderation, and to be more careful, and I am better at eating, you know, variety of fruits and vegetables now.

But your thoughts on that, on moderation? Is that still, you know, a flimsy excuse? My, my mantra always was with the kids when they would say, oh, you know, x or y or whatever wasn't good for you. It's like, well, you know, everything in moderation. This is my philosophy.

There are some people that are food Nazis about what you can have and what you can't have. And it's like, you know, life is short. Everyone dies.

You don't know if you're coming back. So eat the cookie. There are those who would say, well, but, you know, you do as well as you can.

I think my job here is to give people information so they can make informed choices. So if they're taking an antibiotic, they know, oh, I need to get yogurt or kombucha or, you know, something that, well, probably yogurt's the best of those. But, you know, I need, I need to balance that out or else I could get sick.

Or if I choose to have, you know, live on McDonald's only, that I am likely choosing to have a short life. I was going to say an early death. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Did you see that guy who did that film? I was just going to say that. Oh, what the hell is his name? We shouldn't laugh.

It's not funny. We're not laughing at him. I don't remember his name.

But the guy who ate, was it a month of McDonald's? A month of nothing but McDonald's, yes. Yeah. Right.

And the film, if you've never watched it, you really should watch it. I mean, you could just Google film of eating McDonald's for a month and it'll come up. It gets really gross after a while.

It's just really hard to watch somebody eating that every single day. But he just died. Yes.

He wasn't old either, was he? No. Was he in his 50s? Definitely not a 60s, maybe even in his 40s. But I think he was in the 60s.

Yeah. And again, with some folks, they can eat and drink and live to be 90. Others, no.

And most others, no. Our bodies are just not made for this, for all these chemicals and crap. The film, and I'll put it in the show notes.

Well, yeah. The thing, and as we go through this series with you, there are things that are modifiable and things that are non-modifiable. Means things you can change and things you can't.

You can't change your genetics. So if somebody's got great genetics and they can smoke and eat Flamin' Hot Cheetos every day, then they're lucky. Exactly, yeah.

If you don't have the genetics that allows that, then you're gonna have to be more careful. And how do you know? Well, you'll know because how often do you get sick? Exactly, yeah. How often do you have issues? How often do you have to go to the ER, go to the doctor? And the thing- That's how you kind of know.

And the thing with it is, is that some people, yes, that starts to happen. You know, you have to go to the doctor more often. There's the ER.

And Marianne, people still keep putting that junk in their body. Even though your body's telling you, don't do that, doctors are telling you, don't do that. And people still keep doing it.

So. Well, some people have the approach of, nobody's gonna tell me what to do. And my response to that is, okay.

Yes, that's it. Okay. It's your life.

I've had patients on the cancer unit who still are smoking. And I would chat with them about that. They say, well, I got the cancer already.

What difference does it make? Well, it makes a difference in terms of how the chemotherapy is gonna work in your body. If you're still smoking, you're kind of shooting yourself in the foot in terms of your response to the chemotherapy. And, you know, you get that answer.

It's like, I just say, I've learned after being a nurse for so long to say, okay. Yeah. You know, and then if.

It's not my, it's not my job to force you to have a life, a healthy lifestyle. I can inform you about what happens if you don't. And then you make a choice.

And then if nothing else, if there's, you know, family involved, close friends involved, you keep doing that to yourself. I mean, then it also affects, you know, everyone around you. So, yeah.

And they know that. I mean, my brother was a pretty heavy smoker for years. And then he, I don't know, sometime in his 60s stopped smoking.

And then recently, last year or so, he picked it up again. Then I called him for his birthday and he was talking about, I don't know, something. And, you know, about life or something.

And I said, well, are you still smoking? He says, I'm smoking while I'm talking to you. I said, well, I guess you've made your decision, haven't you? Yeah. You know, and I know it's, you know, I've heard you discuss this many times.

And even for me, even when, again, when you, when, for example, when you mentioned the yogurt, I had never thought of that, that there's some, I'm going to put people with advertising and everything. It looks, oh, well, I'm eating yogurt. Eat yogurt.

It's healthy for you. It depends on the yogurt. Even something simple like yogurt.

Yes, ma'am. Yeah, it's, you got to pay attention, folks. You got to, oh boy.

Yeah. Well, I mean, it's a choice. You don't have to.

You don't have to pay attention. But you don't want to, you know, like I've had people on the cancer unit who've said, you know, with lung cancer, who've been smoking for 30 years saying, gee, you know, I thought I'd be the one, you know, who wasn't going to get the lung cancer. Really? Wow.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. And I just like, you know, what do you say to that? I mean, I have snarky comments running through my brain.

I don't let them come out my mouth. Okay. You don't have to tell everyone.

Just tell me. Tell me what are your snarky comments. Thank you, Connie Chun.

So just between us. But it is a lot. Even, like I said, even something simple like yogurt.

And again, but, you know, based on what you have said over different episodes, yeah, I look at yogurts now to make sure it's what the better yogurt, the healthier yogurt. The active yogurt cultures with less sugar. Yeah.

Yeah. Greek yogurt is really, really very good. You know, I buy the Greek yogurt and I like the key lime flot.

Key lime flot. Key lime flot? Okay, very good. Key lime pie.

I'm going to write that down. One is really good. Key lime.

And again, just with a plain old Greek yogurt like that, if I chop up a banana and throw that bad boy in, it's... Heaven. Perfect. Your biome thanks you.

Your mother thanks you. My father thanks you. And I thank you, Jimmy Cagney.

Where are you when we need you? Well, I've heard that. Yes, I've heard that. In our third half, diversity is important in many aspects of our lives, including the microbiome.

The healthier your microbiome, the healthier you are. A diversified microbiome can lower your fat storing hormone resistance, which is a serious pre-diabetic state, increase your weight loss, reduce your inflammation, a common factor underlying disease, such as cancer, diabetes, and autoimmune conditions, such as rheumatoid arthritis. Lower your tendency to allergies by changing your body's immune response to allergens.

Strengthen your immune system, including boosting the protective responses against pathogens. Increase the bioavailability of nutrients in the food you eat. In other words, you get more nutrition out of the food you eat.

So, how do we do this? Number one, eat fiber. Eat vegetable fibers, which feed the friendly bacteria in your gut and help them thrive. They increase the diversity of your microbiome.

Plus, the more microbes you have in your intestines, the better your digestion. Number two, eat a variety of vegetables. Instead of eating the same vegetables repeatedly, rotate the types of veggies you eat.

A simple and effective way to do this is with a large daily salad with different ingredients. The combinations are nearly endless. Kale, cabbage, bok choy, chard, spinach, romaine, broccoli, cauliflower.

Be creative. Number three, lose weight. People who aren't overweight tend to have more diversity in their gut bacteria than a person who is overweight, probably because processed foods are not good for our bodies.

But gut bacteria are just the way people store fat, how blood glucose levels are balanced, and how you respond to hormones that make you feel hungry. A mix of unhelpful bacteria can make you prone to obesity. On the other hand, a diversity of friendly bacteria can help get and keep you at a normal weight.

Number four, fast. That is, don't eat for specific periods of time. Fasting has been shown to strengthen the friendly bacteria in your gut.

They tend to live longer and diversify more when you fast. Number five, consume polyphenols. Polyphenols are micronutrients contained in certain plant-based foods, such as nuts, seeds, vegetables, and berries.

They're loaded with antioxidants and potential health benefits, such as improving digestion issues, easing weight management difficulties, and improving diabetes, neurodegenerative diseases, and heart diseases. Polyphenols are also found in chocolate, coffee, and wine. Number six, eat fermented foods.

Consuming fermented vegetables is highly beneficial for your microbiome. Your gut bacteria feast on fermented foods like sauerkraut, kimchi, and pickles. These foods are simple to make.

Homemade versions will both introduce more friendly bacteria into your gut, as well as provide more of the prebiotic fiber for gut bacteria to eat, than to store-bought varieties will. So, what is the bottom line about how our diet affects our microbiome? A diet rich in grains, vegetables, fruits, and minimally processed plant-based or lean protein can boost your gut microbiome. Foods rich in probiotics and prebiotics may also lend a hand, helping maintain the balance of beneficial gut bacteria.

Diets rich in fried food, sugar, red meat, and processed foods aren't great for microbiome. Ah, sad to say. And that's it for this week's episode of Everyone Dies.

Stay tuned for the continuing saga, and thank you for listening. This is Charlie Navarette, and from Italian poet and novelist Cesar Pavese, who committed suicide in 1950, one of his last poems is entitled, Death Will Come, and She'll Have Your Eyes. And I'm Marianne Matzo, and we'll see you next week.

Remember, every day is a gift. or other qualified health providers with any questions that you may have regarding your health. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard from this podcast.

If you think you may have a medical emergency, call your doctor or 911 immediately. Everyone Dies does not recommend or endorse any specific tests, practitioners, products, procedures, opinions, or other information that may be mentioned in this podcast. Reliance on any information provided in this podcast by persons appearing on this podcast at the invitation of Everyone Dies, or by other members is solely at your own risk.