The gut microbiome provides numerous services for the body. In addition to promoting healthy gut function, the microbiome has far-reaching effects to various body systems, including the immune, hormone, and metabolic systems. Eating healthy microbiome foods should be considered if you are having digestive symptoms such as gas, bloating, loose stool, or constipation. However, even if your health problems are arising in another body system, the gut microbiome may be at the root cause.
Below I’ll review the common prebiotic and probiotic foods you can incorporate into your diet for a healthy microbiome. There are also some situations in which changing diet alone will not be enough to address your health problems. I’ll cover more on these situations below.
What is the Microbiome?
The microbiome is a community of microbes that includes bacteria, viruses, and fungi. Typically, when we talk about the microbiome, we talk about the community of microbes in the digestive tract, from the mouth to the anus. Sometimes the microbiome is also referred to as gut microbiota or flora.
Microbiome Functions
The microbiome does a lot to regulate the body. It synthesizes vitamins and amino acids and aids in the absorption of nutrients and minerals from the digestive tract. It also protects against infection and some forms of cancer and regulates mood. Dysbiosis, a condition of bacterial overgrowth or few good bacteria, has been connected to diabetes and obesity. If an infection is present in the intestines, the chronic inflammation can cause problems with the hormone system. See my posts on adrenal fatigue and PMS for more information on a healthy microbiome for these conditions. The most apparent result of dysbiosis is digestive problems. For more on this see my post on IBS.
Given the far-reaching effects of the gut microbiome on the health of the body, it’s important to incorporate healthy microbiome foods into your diet.
A Dynamic System
The microbial community of the digestive tract is always in flux. The gut is first populated with healthy bacteria from a vaginal birth. Breast feeding further reinforces a healthy microbiome. If either of these two are not in your health history, it may be a reason for an unbalanced microbiome. However, don’t despair. Everything we consume affects the composition of the microbiome. Even habits or activities that you wouldn’t think affect the gut can have an effect. For example, people who garden have a higher diversity of microbes in their gut. Similarly, people who hand wash their dishes instead of letting the dishwasher do the dirty work have greater microbe diversity. I’m not highlighting these examples so that you can change these specific habits. I’m merely demonstrating that the microbiome is affected by everything we do.
Antibiotics
Occasionally, it may be necessary in your life to take antibiotics. Please be aware that this will decimate your microbiome populations. An antibiotic treatment will leave a vacuum for that may be repopulated by parasites and pathogenic bacteria. If you handle the post-antibiotic treatment well, you can repopulate the gut with healthy bacteria. I highly recommend that you include healthy microbiome foods into your diet before, during, and after an antibiotic treatment.
Prebiotic and Probiotic Foods
There are two categories of healthy microbiome foods, prebiotics and probiotics. Most people are familiar with probiotics. These are foods or supplements you can take that have microbes within them that can populate the gut directly. Prebiotics may arguably be more important. These are the foods for the good bugs in the gut.
I have one word of advice on this topic. Don’t become obsessed with getting a specific strain of good bacteria. Often scientific research needs to isolate individual species to discover their benefits, and these results get reported about just that species. From a therapeutic perspective, it’s more important to have a diverse population of good microbes in the gut than to focus on one species.
Probiotic Foods
- Acidophilus milk
- Buttermilk
- Cheese (aged)
- Cottage cheese
- Fermented meats
- Fermented vegetables
- Kefir
- Kimchi
- Kombucha
- Miso
- Natto
- Pickled vegetables (raw)
- Sauerkraut
- Sour cream
- Tempeh
- Yogurt (plain, no added sugar, active cultures)
Prebiotic Foods
- Apple
- Asparagus
- Banana
- Burdock
- Chicory
- Dandelion greens
- Eggplant
- Endive
- Garlic
- Honey
- Jicama
- Konjac
- Leek
- Legumes
- Peas
- Radicchio
- Whole grains
- Yacon
Polyphenols
Polyphenols are plant compounds that are considered to be prebiotics. Here’s a list of foods that are known to be high in polyphenols.
- Blackberries
- Blackcurrants
- Blueberries
- Chestnuts
- Clove
- Coffee
- Cocoa
- Flaxseeds
- Hazelnuts
- Jerusalem artichoke (sunchoke)
- Olives
- Pecans
- Peppermint
- Pomegranate seeds
- Red onion
- Spinach
- Star Anise
- Tea (black and green)
Fiber
Fiber is also technically a prebiotic. Bacteria in the colon use this as its main source of food. The byproduct of fiber from these bacteria are small chain fatty acids (SCFAs). The main one that is formed, and that we know the most about, is butyric acid (butyrate). Butyric acid is the main source of energy for colon cells. It has also helps the colon cells regulate their lifecycle, promoting apoptosis. This has implications for the prevention of colon cancer. Butyric acid also promotes healthy brain function. If you are eating many of the fruits and vegetables from the list, you will be getting plenty of fiber, yet another reason to incorporate these healthy microbiome foods in your diet.
Sugar
We all need sugar, but today’s foods contain sugar in high amounts that are unhealthy for our gut microbiome. These sugars are food for the “bad bacteria.” They promote bacterial overgrowth and lead to dysbiosis. Additionally, they will fuel the proliferation of yeast in the gut. It’s best to avoid foods with added sugar in them entirely.
Elimination Diet
An elimination diet is a powerful tool to modify the gut microbiome. It’s a 4 – 6 week diet that removes problem foods that may be causing your health problems. For more information, see my post on the elimination diet.
When Diet Alone is not Enough
Surely, diet alone can heal a lot of the body’s ills. It’s not a quick fix, but rather something that needs to be a persistent habit to affect long lasting change. There are situations in which diet alone will have difficulty addressing your health issues. A gut infection is one of these situations. This can be from either an intestinal parasite or pathogenic bacteria. These infections are more common than we realize. It’s a hidden form of inflammation in the body. Similarly, if there is dysbiosis with an overgrowth of good bacteria, this can be a situation difficult to adjust with food alone. In both cases, it’s my approach to eliminate the infection and decrease the population of bacteria. Dysbiosis further may be caused insufficient gut motility and gallbladder dysfunction.
If you need help creating a healthy microbiome, I can help. I offer online functional medicine consultations. If you need help, sign up for a free 15-minute consultation.
Disclaimer: This website does not provide medical advice. The information contained on this website is for informational purposes only. No material on this site is intended to be a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of a healthcare professional with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition and treatment before undertaking a new healthcare regimen.