The Important Role of the Microbiome to Your Health and Immune Function

Does the gut microbiome affect immunity and other aspects of health? You'll be surprised how vital our tiny allies are, and how our diet affects their function!

Show Notes and Links: https://bit.ly/3BaeuIW

Gut Microbes produce numerous neurotransmitters vital to mental health, synthesize several vitamins, help the body absorb nutrients, and are linked to the immune system. Learn all about these important relationships so you can make the choices to help you live your best and longest life! 

#microbiome #microbiota #gutmicrobes #kombucha #fermentation #mediterraneandiet #inflammation #chronicinflammation #hearthealthy #brainhealthy #everyonedies #everydayisagift #oprah

In This Episode:

• 01:33 - Is There a Reason to Chose a Non-Profit Hospice?
• 11:24 - Ways to Die in the Future: Hacked Self-Driving Cars
• 15:22 - Recipe of the Week: Strawberry Oatmeal Bars
• 16:42 - The Gut Microbiome: Role in Your Health and Immune Function
• 33:33 - An Anti-Inflammatory Diet
• 36:46 - Outro

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 1:33 Is There a Reason to Chose a Non-Profit Hospice?
• 11:24 Ways to Die in the Future: Hacked Self-Driving Cars
• 15:22 Recipe of the Week: Strawberry Oatmeal Bars
• 16:42 The Gut Microbiome Role in Your Health and Immune Function
• 33:33 An Anti-Inflammatory Diet
• 36:46 Outro

Transcript

Microbiome and Health

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 Marianne Matzo, a nurse practitioner, and I use 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 will be to make difficult decisions when a crisis hits.

So welcome to this week's show. Please relax, get yourself some yogurt with active yogurt cultures and a banana, and thank you for spending the next hour with Charlie and me as we present our second offering about how food affects health and our lifespan. Like the BBC, we see our shows offering entertainment, enlightenment, and education and divide it 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 gossip-free zone. In the 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 how disruptions in our microbiome can lead to certain diseases.

And in our third half, Charlie has an overview of chronic inflammation. So Charlie, a few weeks ago, do you ever watch Last Week Tonight with John Oliver? Yes. On HBO? Oh, yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, I really like his stuff and he's very creative, but he annoyed me this week. Well, now, I finally got around to watching it, but it was the show from sort of the end of August and it was about hospice. Have you seen that one yet? I have not.

I know it's there. I haven't seen it yet. So what annoyed you? Well, you know, we talk about all the time about making the decision to go into hospice, preparing for the end of life, making plans for what you need to do.

And we know it's hard and we know that the idea of death or thinking about not being on this earth anymore is scary to people, right? So his focus on hospice was about fraud in hospice and how he told one story about how people, you know, like hospice recruiters, I don't know if that's what they're called, but they would drive down the street and if they see an old person sitting on the porch in a wheelchair, they'll stop and say, you know, there's a service that you can get with your Medicare that will cover, you know, all your medicines and this and that. And they sign up people to be on hospice who are not in their last six weeks of life. And so then they were talking about people who, there's a category called discharged alive.

So, you know, there are people who not everybody dies in hospice. Some people decide to leave hospice because they want to do another round of chemo or they want to go to a different hospice or they've broken their leg and they are going to go off hospice because they're going to go get treatment for something. So there's this category called discharged alive.

And he was talking about how some hospices have 100% discharged alive, which is for hospice. It's like, wait, what a minute, what are you doing? So his whole thing was about, really, the show was about fraud within hospice. And I'm sitting there watching this and I'm thinking, you know, John Oliver, you're really annoying me right now because this just gives people another reason to say, well, I'm not going to utilize hospice.

You know, hospice is underutilized in the first place. But, you know, there's this fraud and there's this and there's that. Yeah, there's fraud.

There's fraud in, I would think, every kind of company. And you've probably heard me in the past talk about, you know, back in the day when hospices were non-profit, you know, these sort of things just didn't happen. But then such an increase in for-profit hospices sort of begs the opportunity to utilize it as a way to make money.

So, you know, they'll cut corners. And what I've always told people is look for a non-profit hospice. My experience has been non-profit hospices, you're going to get the best care because there's not that, you know, it's not a business.

They're not trying to keep you out of line. Yeah, the incentive isn't money. It's the care of the patient.

Yeah. So, I'm just wondering how, first off, I don't know, no offense to John Oliver, I don't know how many people watch his show, but in terms of the population that's, but you know, their kids will or whatever. And is this going to have a negative effect on hospice utilization and give people one more reason to be afraid of utilizing what's an important and valuable service for people who are facing the end of days? So, I haven't, it is in my queue.

I just haven't seen it yet. But is he saying this is a rampant situation throughout America or? He makes it, at least the way as I listen to it, he makes it sound that way, you know? Oh. And he showed the numbers of non-profits and profits, you know, profit hospices.

And there are more for-profit hospices. But, you know, you have a choice of what hospice you're going to use. You don't have to use a for-profit hospice.

So, I mean, he didn't get, I don't remember there being numbers of this percentage of, you know, I don't know. I just want our listeners to know that you have a choice. If it's possible to use a non-profit hospice, I, my experience has been that you're going to get far better care.

You know, like there's data about how non-for-profit hospices will have fewer RNs, will, you know, hire new grads. Right, yeah. They cost less.

You know, you want experienced people taking care of you at the end of life because it's a complicated kind of care. And, you know, you want to have the best kind of staff available to you and you're going to get, you know, more experience within, at least the data supports more experience within a non-profit. Yeah, I get that.

And, you know, it's like what, you know, we both, but especially you, advocate, you know, you know, my favorite word, prepare, you know, advocate for yourself. So, just don't wait until the last minute when you suddenly need hospice care, but, you know, do your homework first and just that, you know, find a non-profit. And you can, you know, you can explore that ahead of time and put in your book, let your kids know or let your parents know or let whoever it is that you're letting know that this would be my hospice of choice.

You don't want to be in the hospital being discharged to hospice and having everybody scrambling saying, well, which hospice should we choose? Exactly, yes. Yeah. Because if you ask your healthcare practitioner, they're, we're not allowed to say, oh, this is the hospice you should choose.

You know, it's because there's incentives that can go to physicians. I mean, nurses, they bring us donuts and pizza, but, you know, physicians will actually get money to refer people to a certain hospice. And so, an ethical healthcare practitioner is going to say, I've had experience with this one, or what I say is, look for a non-profit.

Okay, yeah. So, that's my rant. John Oliver, do better.

So, remember. Why are you laughing at me? No, I'm just smiling because, I mean, every week, you know, I say, you know, take, you know, do this, you know, apart from your expertise, I mean, every day, every week when I introduce myself, that's the thing I always say. We're here because, you know, the better prepared, you know, a listener is in advance, before a crisis hits, the better prepared you will be when a crisis hits.

That's why I'm smiling. We say this every week, and here's a perfect example. You don't want to be, you know, suddenly sick, you have to go in a hospice, and you don't know what you're getting yourself into, or that your family or friends or whomever don't know what they're getting themselves into.

You gotta prepare. Difficult conversations with many people, but you have to do this in advance, so you're ready. That's why I'm smiling.

Well, so there you have it, folks. Yeah. Yeah.

In our first half, folks, this week's future way to die, according to morbid modernisms, is dying in a fiery wreck when internet pranksters hack all the self-driving cars to crash simultaneously. Now, here's another reason I'm glad I live in New York, because no one can hack the subways. I hope.

Internet pranksters can't be stopped. In 2009, they voted the 4chan founder to the top of the Time 100 poll. Online mobs are also the reason we have a UK research vessel named Bodie McBoatface.

Internet trolls are the ones responsible for turning Tay, Microsoft's optimistic machine learning chat box, into a sex-crazed Nazi in under 24 hours. Then there are even darker examples, like swatting or doxing. Still, it only takes one awful troll to really screw up your day by hacking your car.

One hacker reported to Motherboard that he was capable of accessing two vehicle monitoring apps to see where users' cars were located, access drivers' private information, and even kill the engines remotely. I can absolutely make a big traffic problem all over the world, the hacker told Motherboard. I have full control of hundreds of thousands of vehicles, and by one touch, I can stop these vehicles' engines.

As self-driving technology develops, both white hat hackers groups and malicious hackers will likely follow suit and hone their skills. Even as anti-hacking tech, like Faraday cages, becomes more common, it seems that large-scale hacks aren't going anywhere, and will continue to grow more sophisticated as well. Let's say a group of future hackers come together with the intent to crash all self-driving cars simultaneously.

In 2019, there were some 31 million cars with at least some level of automation in operation worldwide. By 2030, that number is projected to reach 125.66 million. Imagine if a hacker suddenly gained control of them all.

It would be complete chaos, with 20 million cars all crashing at once. More than quadruple the number of annual car accidents in the U.S. The mass bloodshed would be unfathomable. Aside from massive pileups, T-bone collisions, and driving off bridges, every cyclist and pedestrian would be in danger, even the Boy Scout helping Grandma cross the street.

The couple non-autonomous drivers left panicked. Someone inevitably hits you, but your airbag has been hacked too. Not a great way to go.

All the self-driving ambulances won't be able to get to you, or the autonomous hearses. And you thought autonomous cars were supposed to be safer. Silly you.

Now, our recipe this week is for Strawberry Oatmeal Bars, rich in vitamin C and antioxidants like anthocyanin compounds and elagic acid. Strawberries can help keep you healthy by reducing inflammation and oxidative stress. Strawberries also contain fiber, manganese, potassium, and folate, and help you maintain balanced blood sugar levels, since they are a low-glycemic fruit.

That is, they don't spike your blood sugar level when you eat them, which is great if you have weight loss goals. For the strawberries, look for deep red, fully ripe berries. The deeper the hue, the higher the concentration of anthocyanin antioxidant compounds.

The people at your next funeral lunch never need know that you are looking out for their health. Bon Appetit. Please go to our webpage for this week's recipe for Strawberry Oatmeal Bars 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 donate at www.everyonedies.org. That's every, the number one dies.org. Or at our site on Patreon, www.patreon.com and search for Everyone Dies. Marianne. Thanks, Charlie.

Last week, we started our series about factors that contribute to your health and our discussion about our microbiome. I think it would be helpful to listen to that podcast as well as the one about inflammation to set the stage for this week's talk. To very briefly recap, our gastrointestinal tract are made up of trillions of microbes.

These living cells make up our microbiome, which is made by our DNA, the external environment, and our diet. The microbiome's makeup 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 diseases in later life. Your intestinal tract is your largest immune system organ.

About 80% of your immune-producing cells live 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 are research findings that indicate how an unhealthy microbiome can cause diseases. The gut microbiome has been referred to as the last undiscovered human organ. Microbes within the human gut have significant effects on human health and immune function due to their closeness to the immune environment within the gastrointestinal tract.

The diseases linked with the gut microbiome are distinguished by continual low-grade inflammation. 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, or you might hear them referred to as SCFAs, which have an anti-carcinogenic means helps prevent cancer and anti-inflammatory properties.

An essential balance of the microbiome either keeps the immune system in balance or impairs immune function, triggers inflammation, and our bodies then become diseased. Nurse authors Clark, Butler, and Wilson published an article highlighting five diseases known to be associated with an unhealthy gut microbiome, which are the heart, type 2 diabetes, cancer, allergies, and mental health. Our diet has a major influence on our microbiome, especially western diets that are high in animal fat, low in fiber, are high fat, high carbohydrates, and high calories.

This type of diet creates an ineffective and unhealthy microbiome, and an unhealthy microbiome leads to an unhealthy body and disease. Research study findings indicate that there is a strong association between the health of the heart and the gut microbiome. An imbalance of healthy and unhealthy microbes and their function is known as gut dysbiosis.

Dysbiosis results in increased frequency of hardening of the arteries, inflammation, obesity, and insulin resistance, as well as high cholesterol levels. About one-fourth of the body's cholesterol level comes from what we eat. The liver produces the cholesterol essential for life supports the function and structure of cell membranes.

We need cholesterol to make hormones, bile acids, and vitamin D, because bile acids aid cholesterol absorption, creation, and excretion. They also assist in the absorption of fats, nutrients, and fat-soluble vitamins, and play a direct role in the body's management of glucose, fats, and energy metabolism. The presence of gut microbes helps to preserve and safeguard these bile acids.

So, symbiosis alters the body's cholesterol balance and affects serum cholesterol levels. A gut microbiome with plenty of lactobacilli and bifidobacterium has been specifically associated with a lower cardiovascular risk. Researchers have linked the presence of trimethylene N-oxide, which the abbreviation is TMAO, with an increased risk of heart disease.

TMAO is a toxic product produced by gut bacteria in the digestion of red meat, eggs, and deep-sea fish. Increased production of TMAO changes fat levels and leads to an increased risk of coronary artery disease. Lactobacilli and bifidobacterium reduce the making of TMAO.

Short-chain fatty acids made in the colon by good bacteria in the gut because of carbohydrate and fiber fermentation enable the production of fats, sugar use, and the inflammatory response, and inhibit the growth of bad bacteria such as salmonella and E. coli. Those short-chain fatty acids are also associated with decreased serum cholesterol levels and a lower risk of heart disease. There's a strong relationship between the gut microbiome and the development of liver, colorectal, and pancreatic cancer.

Specific bacteria can trigger the development of some cancers. Biomarkers in the gut microbiome can aid identification and even predict pancreatic and colorectal cancers. Specific microbes can contribute to the risk of cancer and tumor development as well as the effectiveness of cancer treatment.

An unhealthy gut microbiome also increases the risk of metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, and obesity, all of which are a result of blood sugar instability, insulin resistance, and inflammation. Current best practices in the treatment of type 2 diabetes include optimal nutrition and a well-balanced diet. Fiber-rich diets and polyphenols, which are in berries, nuts, and olives, can benefit the microbiome composition by reducing inflammation, decreasing insulin resistance, and elevating glucose and insulin levels.

Research findings suggest a role for gut microbiome in the development of allergic conditions. An imbalance in the gut microbiome has been linked to increased risk of conditions such as asthma, itchy dry skin, psoriasis, and eczema. Probiotic therapy can help decrease inflammation and may assist in the treatment of allergic asthma.

Research has found that administering probiotics in combination with conventional asthma therapy helps to ease asthma symptoms. There's a theory called the hygiene theory, which developed out of observing that children from large households have lower allergy rates, suggests that a lack of exposure to a variety of microbes increases the risk for developing allergic conditions. Mom's prenatal exposure to pets, living in rural environments, and delivering the baby vaginally are all associated with reduced allergies in the children.

So, the five-second rule of dropping food on the floor and then eating it might, in fact, be onto something. Send your kids out to play in the dirt. It's good for them.

Most studies to date have focused on the gut microbiome, but we also should consider skin or airway microbes and their role in allergy development, and that's part of the research that's going on too. Lastly, the gut microbiome has been implicated in triggering the development of mental health issues. The brain is the newest frontier, but it's one with an old connection to the gut.

The ancient Greeks, for example, believed mental disorders arose when the digestive tract produced too much black bile, and long before microbes were discovered, some philosophers and physicians argued that the brain and gut were partners in shaping human behavior. Our brain and our gut are in constant communication. For example, many people with irritable bowel syndrome are also depressed.

People on the autism spectrum tend to have digestive problems, and people with Parkinson's are prone to constipation. Researchers have also noticed an increase in depression in people taking antibiotics, but not for people who take antiviral or antifungal medications that leave the gut bacteria unharmed. Specific gut microbes play a role in the production of more than 60 neurotransmitters.

For example, microbes in the digestive system synthesize most of the body's serotonin, and many antidepressants target serotonin levels, which is involved in effective sleep, as well as depression, bipolar disorder, and other mental health conditions. And dopamine is the neurotransmitter involved in schizophrenia. Recently, probiotics have been integrated into treatment for depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia.

Significant research also indicates that the improvement of digestive health with pre and probiotics may benefit those people diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum. Being healthy and staying healthy starts with what we eat. Diet and supplements significantly influence the balance and composition of the gut microbiome.

Probiotics help maintain and enrich the health of many microbe groups. Foods provide the safest source of probiotics because they offer a variety of cultures, so supplements really shouldn't be our first choice. We talked at length about dietary changes and the use of pre and probiotics in episode 24, so look at the show notes and click on that, and you can listen to that so that you get kind of a full picture of pro and prebiotics.

Choosing a low-fat, low-sugar, high-fiber diet can alter the gut micro... Choosing a low-fat, low-sugar, high-fiber diet can alter the gut microbiome in as little as a day. You know, Rocky Horror said, in just seven days, I can make you a man. Well, in just 24 hours, you can change your gut microbiome.

Make good choices, and you could be just a little bit healthier tomorrow. So, Charlie, questions? Oh, yeah. So, in other words, variety is the spice of life.

Monotony provides the groceries and keeps you a little healthier. Oh, shoot. Yeah, I just got to be on top of this thing.

And it's expensive now. I went to the grocery store for the first time in, what, two and a half months because I had ankle surgery and wasn't allowed to walk, so Dave was doing all the grocery shopping. They have the little electric carts I was scooting all over.

And I didn't even get a week's worth of groceries. I got fruit and vegetables and stuff to make this orzo salad I wanted to make. It was $179.

What? Yeah. What? I mean, the large size yogurt was $6. It used to be $2.95 like yesterday.

Yeah. And I know it's a political year, and I know that this price is a reflection of post-COVID and, I think, in my heart, corporate greed. I was just about to say that, yes.

Did I say that out loud? But $6 for plain yogurt? Yeah, exactly. Yes. I bought a container of orzo, you know, like a multi thing of orzo.

Right. It was $15.95. What? What? Yeah. There were things I was looking at.

It's like, oh, that looks good. And then I looked at the price and I said, I'm not spending that. I don't know.

Anyway, I digress. What was I saying? Well, no, I don't think it necessarily that you're digressing. It's true.

As a country, most people do not take, what, 30 seconds, if that much, just to look at the damn label and see how much crap is in their food and try to find something a little bit better. And the other thing, just what you were saying, is price. But you know what? In the end, people are going to pay more to take care of their health down the road than spending, and I hate to say this, but you're going to have to spend a little extra money, sometimes a lot more money, I mean, just to eat healthy.

And even just a little bit of healthy is a good thing. I still enjoy my occasional steak, but I don't do this on a regular basis, just for that reason, what you're saying. I do like my junk food, but instead of sitting down and eating a ton of junk food, it's in moderation.

Maybe I'll eat just half of it, or maybe sometimes not even half of it. But just, yeah. Yeah.

And something I've noticed is, like, oh God, I've always loved salt, and you've been very liberal with the salt shaker. But I stopped that, I don't know, a couple years ago. And I find myself saying, God, I'm turning into such an old person.

I find myself saying to David, no, listen, I say to him, taste this, does this taste really salty to you? Because everything tastes really salty to me now. Oh, okay, sure, because you're not doing it all the time, yeah. I don't do it at all, and it's like, oh, this is just too salty.

So, if you kind of stop doing those things that you thought you couldn't live without, you'll find that you really didn't need it. You can live without them, and you can live better and healthier. So, on that happy note, informative note, in our third half, when we have an injury, inflammation is our friend, a natural, normal immune system response to injury and infection.

My focus is on the bad kind of inflammation, which is long-term, chronic inflammation that can have a harmful effect on the entire body. It is low-grade and persistent and is triggered by our body's perception of a threat, even when there isn't a disease to fight or an injury to heal. The immune system gets involved, white blood cells swarm, have nowhere to go and nothing to do, though they can start attacking normal tissues.

Chronic inflammation has been linked to heart disease and stroke, cancer and autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, and lupus, in which our immune system damages our own organs, tissues, or cells. When our joints are involved in chronic inflammation, we may experience redness, swelling, pain, stiffness, and loss of joint function, accompanied by flu-like symptoms like fever, chills, and fatigue. We are not always aware that chronic inflammation has affected our internal organs because many of our organs do not contain nerves that sense pain.

Examples include inflammation of our heart, inflammation of the bronchioles that bring air into our lungs, inflammation of our kidneys, eyes, muscles, or blood vessels. We can modify our diet, lifestyles, and environmental exposures to promote healthy immunity. Anti-inflammatory diets, which are similar to the Mediterranean diet, include eating plenty of fish, fresh vegetables and veggies, healthy fats, and drinking red wine.

Okay, in moderation. An anti-inflammatory diet also means staying away from foods that promote inflammation. Minimize saturated and trans fats like red meats, dairy products, and foods that contain partially hydrogenated oils.

Limit sugary foods and refined carbs like white rice and bread. Cut back on the use of cooking oils that are high in omega-6 fatty acids such as corn, safflower, and sunflower oils. There are currently no prescription drugs that specifically target chronic inflammation, although acupuncture and the gentle movements of Tai Chi and Qi Gong can help with joint pain and mobility.

Traditional Chinese healers have always stated that a healthy lifestyle promotes good health. We all have room to make better choices for our health. And that's it for this week's episode.

Stay tuned for the continuing saga of Everyone Dies, and thank you for listening. This is Charlie Navarette, and from the dedication of the Jack Reacher novel, No Plan B, for everyone we have lost too soon. And I'm Marianne Matso, and we'll see you next week.

Remember, every day is a gift. Have a great day, and I'll see you next time. the invitation of everyone dies, or by other members is solely at your own risk.