Gut Health
Health from the Gut
Your gut is central to metabolic health. A new study reveals how dietary fiber and specific gut bacteria can significantly improve your metabolism and glucose tolerance.
Gut Health
Your gut is central to metabolic health. A new study reveals how dietary fiber and specific gut bacteria can significantly improve your metabolism and glucose tolerance.
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Gastric bypass surgeries are today a proven, common method to help people lose weight. Naturally, this primarily affects people whose metabolic health cannot be "saved" in other ways. Operations should in principle be the last resort.
In any case, a drastic weight loss can often be observed here – also linked with an extreme improvement in metabolic health, including remission of type 2 diabetes.
The topic is well researched and the data shows that this is not so much about the actual gastric reduction and the resulting "eat half" approach, but rather that this surgical intervention has a whole range of consequences that have a positive effect on metabolism.
One or another might wonder: "Gut hormones? – What am I supposed to do with that?" Answer: These "good" gut hormones regulate systemic health, for example influencing how well the pancreas functions. Aha! So the circle closes.
Now this is not meant to be advertising for gastric bypass surgery. Instead, it's about a study that examines, among other things, gastric bypass surgeries. But this study also examines the effects of fermentable fibers – in our language: dietary fiber – specifically, it's about inulin. Perhaps some of you are familiar with it.
In any case, this new study, published in the prestigious journal Cell Metabolism, was able to demonstrate that both gastric bypass surgery and the aforementioned dietary fiber contribute to massive recolonization of the gut with beneficial bacteria. Specifically, it's about the well-known bacterial classes of Bifidobacteria and Lactobacilli, which both have in common that they break down dietary fiber into lactate (salt of lactic acid). Hence the well-known name: lactic acid bacteria.
Now the "punchline": This beneficial recolonization with lactate-producing bacteria, through the formation of this very lactate, ensured that a – surprise – "good" gut hormone, namely Reg3g, was produced more frequently. This Reg3g is an antimicrobially active protein that is supposed to maintain a healthy gut flora. However, new research shows that it not only has local effects, i.e., effects in the gut, but also systemic ones – it acts on all organs.
The study was now able to show that both inulin (dietary fiber) and gastric bypass surgery, through increased production of Reg3g, improve metabolic health – i.e., provide better glucose tolerance, better pancreatic function, and lower body fat mass. Additionally, Reg3g improved intestinal barrier function, making the gut healthier.
The authors conclude: "These data suggest that Reg3g, both in the lumen and as a gut hormone, establishes a connection between the gut microbiome and various aspects of host physiology that can be used for novel therapeutic strategies." The results are summarized nicely in this image.
This study is an excellent example ...
How? For example, by eating your vegetables. For example, by consuming probiotics or fermented foods. For example, by directly consuming acids or lactic acid (lactate) (= the brine of lactic acid fermented cucumbers, for example). For example, by moving your body and exercising. Or – as outlined in our new blog article – for example, by not eating like your neighbor (with sweets and Co.).
Then you don't need gastric surgery either.
