Diet – Naturally Inspiring

November 4, 2024November 5, 2024

From Your Gut to Your Heart: The Surprising Role of Exercise in Cardiac Recovery

Background:

The gut microbiome plays a crucial role in maintaining human health by interacting with host metabolism, immune function, and disease states. The diverse microbial communities within our gut not only contribute to digestion and nutrient absorption but also produce various metabolites (small molecules created when the body breaks down food and other substances) that influence overall health of the body. Who knew that a heart-healthy life might start with some gutsy friends in our microbiome? As exercise continues to grow in popularity as part of a healthy lifestyle, interest is also growing in understanding how it affects health beyond fitness.

Recent studies have examined how exercise impacts the gut microbiome (Lambert et al., 2015; Motiani et al., 2020) as well as how these microbiome changes may influence cardiovascular health, showing that exercise can modify gut microbiota composition and potentially offer protective effects against cardiovascular conditions (Longoria et al., 2022; Zhou et al., 2022). Understanding the mechanisms behind these relationships could lead to new therapeutic approaches aimed at treating cardiovascular health complications.

October 25, 2024November 5, 2024

Could drinking this yogurt beverage daily decrease Polycystic Ovary Syndrome symptoms?

Background

5 to 6 million American women live with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS). According to the endocrine society, PCOS affects 7–10% of women of childbearing age and is the most common cause of infertility (Solorzano et al., 2022). PCOS is characterized by consistent inflammation, an irregular menstrual cycle, an excess production of male hormones, cysts formed on the ovaries (which cause pain in the uterine area), and dysbiosis. Dysbiosis is defined by an imbalance in bacterial makeup, changes in bacterial metabolic activities, or changes in distribution of bacteria within the gut. It is involved in the process by which many diseases develop or progress (“pathogenesis”). There are three types of dysbiosis according to a study in an Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) journal: 1) Loss of beneficial bacteria, 2) Overgrowth of potentially pathogenic bacteria, and 3) Loss of overall number of species of bacteria (DeGruttola et al., 2016).

October 31, 2019

What Did I Eat? Or How Did the Critters in Your Food End Up in Your Gut

Background

They always say that you are what you eat. In recent years, there have been an increasing amount of studies looking at the various microbes that live in and on you, and how your habits impact them. These large number of microbes are what comprises your microbiome. Understanding how they are impacted by lifestyle is becoming a well studied area of microbiology. Previous studies in this field have shown that certain types of these microbiota can have positive or negative effects on the overall function of an organism (Human Microbiome Project Phase II). Certain types of microbes have shown to be associated with various diseases of the gut. Many of these microbes have the ability to cause major health concerns among the human population, such as Irritable Bowel Syndrome, obesity, and autoimmune disease (Pittayanon et al., 2019 and Marietta et al., 2019).

Being able to characterize our differences based on diet can begin to help us be able to get our microbiomes to a “healthy’ state, (what is relatively healthy for the individual, not necessarily an overlapping term for everyone). This will also help with these diseases so they don’t plague the population in such high amounts as they do now. We can potentially do this through looking at the nutrient content within our chosen diets and how that diet relates to the number of microbiota and subsequently how those microbiota impact the body. That’s exactly what the authors of a recent study did (Losasso et al., 2018). Continue reading “What Did I Eat? Or How Did the Critters in Your Food End Up in Your Gut”

November 2, 2018November 3, 2018

Moms and Microbiomes: Making the Breast(feeding) Decision

Background

Parents want to know the best ways to protect and maintain their child’s health. Most parents have strong opinions about the best way to ensure their child stays healthy. The decision to breastfeed or use formula is just one example of a highly controversial parenting choice in recent years. Another very contested issue is the maternal diet during pregnancy, which has been found to have lasting impacts on the child’s health. Continue reading “Moms and Microbiomes: Making the Breast(feeding) Decision”

November 22, 2016April 28, 2017

What happens to your microbiome when you stop eating gluten?

The Gluten-free Diet

Celiac Disease is an autoimmune condition in which the immune system mistakenly attacks and damages the villi of the small intestine when it detects gluten. This damage can cause pain, fatigue, and diarrhea. If left untreated it can lead to complications such as infertility or cancer. Only a small number of people- around one percent of the population- actually suffer from Celiac Disease. A gluten-free diet is used as treatment for both celiac disease and non-celiac gluten sensitivity. Even though it is unknown whether a gluten-free diet is beneficial to people who do not have Celiac Disease, many people have adopted a gluten-free diet to eat healthier or lose weight. The number of people eating gluten-free is rising, with 17% of Americans actively avoid including gluten in their diet (Riffkin 2015). Continue reading “What happens to your microbiome when you stop eating gluten?”