Month: August 2019

3 ways to improve your microbiome with food

Wow, we’re getting to the end of August – Microbiome month at Eat Well Live Well.

We started with a look at what the microbiome is (read the post here if you missed it).

In this video I then explained how your microbiome is different from others.

Last week I explained how your microbiome affects your endometriosis.

So this week we finally get to the good part: I'll give you 3 ways to improve your microbiome with food.

Because here’s the thing: the bacteria in your gut eat what you eat. And the different bacteria thrive on different types of food. Which means you can starve the bad bacteria by eating none (or less) of the foods they love, and grow the colonies of good bacteria by eating more of what they love.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it?

I’m a realist though, and know that you’ll disagree with me once you see what you should stop eating and what you should eat  more of.  But even slow, small changes will start to make a difference in your microbiome.

Let’s start with foods to remove from your diet so the bad bacteria starve:

 

Sugar, sugar-containing and simple carbohydrates

Bad bacteria absolutely love sugar! And that’s not just actual sugar, soft drinks and lollies. We’re talking:

  • biscuits,
  • low fibre, commercial bread,
  • crackers,
  • pasta,
  • white rice
  • even most peanut butters (check the label, they’ve got sugar!),
  • fruit juice (unless you juice yourself, and include the whole fruit)
  • honey (the supermarket, run of the mill version)
  • flavoured yoghurts: the yoghurt may contain good bacteria, but the flavouring will undo their benefit
  • artificial sweeteners, especially aspartame
  • alcohol

Some of these foods contain sugar, and some are easily turned into sugar by your body. Have a look at the label of some of your favourite foods and find out how much total sugar it contains per serve. When it comes to a healthy gut microbiome, reducing your sugar intake is a key step.

 

Now, let’s see what you should eat to increase the numbers of good bacteria.

 

Probiotic foods

Probiotic foods are foods that contain good bacteria. By eating more of them, you add more to your gut.

Any food that has been fermented contains good bacteria. The fermentation  process involves bacteria to change the sugars in the food.

Examples of probiotic foods are:

  • natural, unsweetened yoghurt. If you are very used to the sweetened variety, add some mashed up fresh fruit and initially some raw organic honey.
  • Hard cheeses like Cheddar and Gouda
  • Kimchi
  • Sauerkraut
  • Kefir
  • Kombucha
  • Tempeh
  • Pickles – as long as they are salt-pickled (so in brine), not vinegar-pickled.
  • Apple cider vinegar

Some of these are very popular ‘health’ products at the moment, like Kombucha, and are available in the supermarket. I wouldn’t bother with them, as many manufacturers add extra sugar to make it taste sweeter, or may not even be made properly (a dead give-away is if the label says “made with Kombucha extract”. They may also be pasteurised, killing the bacteria in the process. Health food stores may be a better option. Make sure that the Kombucha you buy is refrigerated. Or make your own with a purchased SCOBY (the starter).

Pickling your own vegetables is also quite straightforward and there are many good recipes out there.

 

Prebiotic foods

Prebiotic foods provide food for the good bacteria that are already in the gut and help the colonies to grow. Good bacteria love fibre and resistant starch. Fibre cannot be digested by the body, but gut bacteria can digest it.

Foods high in fibre are:

  • Fresh fruits – skin on where possible, because it’s the skin that contains the most fibre
  • Fresh vegetables, especially broccoli and green peas
  • Legumes and beans, like lentils, chickpeas, kidney beans, etc.
  • Wholegrains, like brown rice
  • Nuts and seeds

Resistant starch can be found in:

  • Oats (although be careful if you are on a gluten-free diet – even though oats don’t contain wheat protein, they may have been processed by equipment also used to process wheat, and so could be contaminated with gluten).
  • Cooked and cooled rice
  • Cooked and cooled potatoes
  • Legumes
  • Raw potato starch
  • Green bananas, although they may be a bit of an acquired taste ..

 

If you were to implement each of these 3 ways to improve your microbiome with food changes at once, you’d have a struggle on your hands. My best advice is to start to reduce your sugar intake at the pace you can manage.

And slowly start adding pro- and prebiotic foods. Try a little bit, see how you like them.

Remember, every little change will be a positive change, and will be improving your microbiome!

 

Not sure where to start with your diet? I'd love to give you some suggestions for quick and easy tweaks, based what you typically eat.

Yes, I'd like that!

How your microbiome affects your Endometriosis

Over the past two weeks we’ve looked at what the microbiome is, and what it typically looks like in women with Endometriosis.

But why would we be interested in your microbiome? Time to explore how the microbiome affects your endometriosis.

In last week’s video (you can watch it again here) I explained that women with Endometriosis have an altered microbiome. They have more bad bacteria in their gut, vagina and pelvic cavity and less good bacteria.

The bad bacteria produce chemicals, called endotoxins. The endotoxins trigger the immune system. We know that women with Endometriosis have an ‘excitable’ immune system, making it react, and overreact, to harmless triggers.

The immune system is our focus for September, so we’ll delve deeper into it next month. But at this point it is important to realise that one of your immune system’s key response is to create inflammation. And in the case of endotoxins, it’s not a localised, acute inflammation you would get with a small wound on your hand, for example, but a systemic (wide-spread), chronic inflammation, affecting a wide range of organs and tissues.

In your gut, this inflammation creates and worsens a leaky gut, where the gut wall allows undigested food particles to go through and enter the blood stream. Which triggers the immune system, creates more inflammation … you can see the vicious cycle.

When the organs in your pelvic cavity get inflamed as well, they become perfect areas for endometrial tissue to settle and grown.

The lack of good bacteria also contributes by creating an environment where bad bacteria can flourish.  Certain good bacteria like those of the lactobacillus family, help to increase the pH in your gut as well as in your endometrial tissue, making it very difficult for the bad bacteria to survive.

So a healthy microbiome affects your endometriosis by keeping the pH high to make it difficult for bad bacteria to thrive, and with less bad bacteria, your immune system will be calmer. A calmer immune system means less inflammation, and that means it’s harder for endometrial tissue to ‘settle’.

Next week I will give tips on how to start changing the balance of the bacteria in your microbiome with food.

And here are links to the previous posts in this month’s theme:

Typical bacteria found in the microbiome of women with endometriosis

Last week I explained what the microbiome is: the balance of good and bad bacteria. If you missed the post, you can read it here.

This week, I’d like to share with you what we know about the microbiome for women with endometriosis. Because their microbiome differs from other women and this has a direct impact on the progression of endometriosis.

Women with endometriosis have been found to have more E. coli/Shigella in their gut microbiome, their vaginal microbiome and even in the endometrial tissue.

Bacteria like E.coli/Shigella produce endotoxins that trigger an immune response that leads to inflammation.

Increased inflammation is the perfect environment for endometrial tissue to attach itself to organs in your pelvic cavity.

Women with endometriosis have been found to have less lactobacillus strains in their gut microbiome, their vaginal microbiome and even in the endometrial tissue.

Bacteria like lactobacillus produce lactic acid, which lowers the pH and makes it difficult for many bacteria (the ones we don’t want) to survive.

So low levels of lactobacillus increase the pH (in your gut, in your vagina and within the endometrial tissue), creating a wonderful environment for bad bacteria to thrive.

 

Next week we will explore how the typical microbiome of women with endometriosis impacts the progression of your disease.

Have you joined the 'Using Nutrition to Manage Endometriosis' Facebook group yet? It's a supportive community of women with endometriosis where you can find tips, ideas and strategies for all sorts of symptoms.

You can join here.

The Microbiome in Endometriosis – what is it?

You hear the term everywhere at the moment: ‘Microbiome’. It’s very popular with advertisers, so you may be wondering what it is. Is it something real or a fancy marketing term? Is it good? Is it bad? What does it do?

Time to get some clarity on it, as, yes it is real, and because it has a major impact on your endometriosis.

In the most simple terms: microbiome is the combination of all bacteria. Bacteria on you (your skin) and in you (your gut).

We used to think bacteria were all bad, and getting rid of them from within us, on us and around us was a good thing to do.

Now we know that we are host to trillions of bacteria and that without them we wouldn’t survive!

For example, you have a microbiome on your skin. These bacteria play a key role in making sure that dangerous particles (all around us) can’t enter your skin.

You also have a microbiome in your gut; a balance of bacteria that are essential for digestion, your immune system and even emotions.

For Endometriosis, we are mostly interested in your gut microbiome and the microbiome in your pelvic cavity.

Each microbiome consists of good bacteria – the ones that help keep our body systems working well and keep us healthy – and bad bacteria – the ones that cause problems.

The reason we want to look at your gut microbiome is that we know the women with endometriosis have an altered microbiome: for some reason they have more bad bacteria.

Another reason to look at the microbiome is that nutrition is a powerful way to alter your gut microbiome.

Did you know that gut bacteria feed on what you eat?

Bad bacteria feed on different foods than good bacteria. Which is great, because by eating more of the foods that good bacteria like you can increase the number of good bacteria in your gut. And by eating less of the foods that bad bacteria need you can starve them.

Here is a good introductory video about the human microbiome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DTrENdWvvM

In next week’s post I will go into more detail on the bacteria that make up the microbiome in women with endometriosis.

If you have any questions about what the microbiome is, post them below!