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>you can dramatically improve your microbiome health (whatever that term actually means) by eating a high fiber diet Is that (primarily) because high fiber foo
by wintermutestwin 4y ago
>you can dramatically improve your microbiome health (whatever that term actually means) by eating a high fiber diet
Is that (primarily) because high fiber food takes so long to digest that it gives more time for "stuff" to propagate in your gut?
- rootusrootus 4y agoI'm not an expert, but I would probably have guessed the opposite. Lots of fiber means nice, consistent bowel movements. I'm pretty sure it speeds up your digestive tract, if anything -- it doesn't take a long time to digest, it doesn't digest at all.
- tum92 4y agoWork in the field myself. The real answer is definitely we don’t know, but for whatever reason a high diversity (lots of different kinds of bacteria) seems to be almost universally good. Fiber is the major carbohydrate source for our gut microbiome, and a fiber-rich and fiber-diverse diet seems to provide lots of niches for various bugs to grow.
- majkinetor 4y agoNo, its mostly because it can't be digested at all by humans but are food for bacteria as every cow knows. The benefit of slow digestion by fiber is mostly for diabetes control. Fixing microflora (and hence influencing metagenome) however, is not that simple. You wont feed good bacteria only, but pathogenic too if you have them overpopulated, which will make things worst. You can't easily replace those with new ones coming from food because of the acid barrier. You might think that lowering it down is good idea, but its totally not, because you will soon find new neighbor h. pylory which can cause all kinds of shit, along with having less nutrientes available by stealing and unoptimal pH environment. Regular probiotics are usually meaningless (influencing environment like fart in the wind). Eating carnivoir diet makes your acid stronger which further strenghtens your defences (only great if you don't have invaders). Then, this is dynamic - good guys can become bad in specific context. The best way to improve your microbiome health is to find FT surogate, some great probiotic like Visbiome or VSL3, eat fermented foods, use prebiotics, and obviously dont use antibiotics in relaxed manner (save them for emergencies, like once in decade, and even then help flora repopulation and good luck with fungi proliferation) and do not remove your apendix just for the sake of it. Funny thing nobody mentiond antibiotics and how harmful they are. Yes, they can save your life but poping them every now and then borders to malpractice. I am a software architect, not a doctor, but machine is a machine.
- TaupeRanger 4y agoAnd yet, there is no evidence at all that people who take more antibiotics live shorter or worse quality lives...so does any of this really matter at all?
- sinsterizme 4y agoKindly don’t say stuff like this. After taking antibiotics I had severe, severe anxiety that lasted months along with insomnia. Now the anxiety is mostly gone but I’m still dealing with some sleep issues. If you google antibiotics anxiety microbiome you can read a bunch of studies.
- KennyBlanken 4y agoKindly do not cite personal anecdotes as evidence.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- majkinetor 4y agoKindly do your own research instead producing spam answers.
- TaupeRanger 4y agoSorry. Anecdotes are not useful or instructive here. No studies show a causal effect of antibiotics on anxiety. In fact, it wouldn't be surprising if people who needed medical treatment (causing an antibiotic Rx) later had anxiety due to the nature of their health condition.
- sinsterizme 4y agoThere are quite a few studies done on mice where they show this.