Are overly diverse and unstable diets the cause of digestive issues

barefooter

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If a constantly changing diet is causing regular shifts in the microbiome, this would cause regular bacterial dieoff events, and potentially regularly elevated LPS in the bloodstream. It would seem logical that the ideal situation in the gut is a diverse and stable microbiome. I know Peat talks about a sterile gut, but that simply isn't possible outside of a lab, so I think the things of most importance are keeping pathogenic species and endotoxin low. It seems that a diverse and stable microbiome would optimally achieve both of these goals. Which makes sense if you use ecology as a comparison, where something like an apex forest is both stable and diverse. And this is made possible because it has a very slow changing set of energy inputs. If the soil composition was constantly changing in a forest, there would be regular events of trees dying off and getting replaced with less mature species, resulting in both less stability and diversity. The land would also be likely to get overtaken by invasive species, as you can observe on patches of land that are routinely disturbed, like the side of a highway.

I can't find the link right now, but a fascination of mine has been all potato diets (the potato hack). One guy who did this (or maybe there was a study) tested his microbiome before and after, and the after test showed a much healthier balance of species and a greatly increased diversity. At the time I remember being surprised by the increased diversity, as I, like most people, assume greater diversity of food would result in a greater diversity of bacterial species. But I have to imagine that a general characteristic of diverse diets is that they're not very stable. If someone is eating 100 different foods, it's unlikely they eat all of those 100 every day, so there is a constantly changing input to the gut, which would make for a constantly changing bacterial colony, which in theory would result in reduced diversity and regular dieoff events.

This all makes a lot of sense too if you think about hunter gatherers and early agricultural peoples. They may have eaten a large number of plants and animals in the course of a year, but I imagine their diet would have rotated very slowly. So maybe they're foraging or growing a few things one month and that comprises the majority of their diet for a month or two. Then new things come into season and the diet shifts, and the microbiome shifts with it. This is much more stable than modern humans that eat Thai food on monday, burgers on Tuesday, Mexican on Wednesday, and then Salad on Thursday when they're feeling bad about their food choices. It's only in the modern age with long distance shipping and refrigeration that we've had the luxury of changing our diets on the daily. Is this abundance of choice killing our guts?

I think I'm going to experiment with a simple diet to see if it can fix my gut issues (IBS, maybe SIBO). An all potato diet seems too boring, but I think I can handle potato, steak, and broccoli, which sounds pretty similar to a bodybuilder's diet. A ratio of 6:2:1 by weight (potato:broccoli:steak) meets all nutritional requirements, other than coming in a tad low in calcium. Daily intake of 60oz potatoes, 20oz broccoli, 10oz sirloin steak, and 1/2 tsp calcium carbonate satisfies all dietary requirements and clocks in at 2200 calories. Has anyone tried a simple and consistent diet like this, did it help your gut?
 

Ben.

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If a constantly changing diet is causing regular shifts in the microbiome, this would cause regular bacterial dieoff events, and potentially regularly elevated LPS in the bloodstream. It would seem logical that the ideal situation in the gut is a diverse and stable microbiome. I know Peat talks about a sterile gut, but that simply isn't possible outside of a lab, so I think the things of most importance are keeping pathogenic species and endotoxin low. It seems that a diverse and stable microbiome would optimally achieve both of these goals. Which makes sense if you use ecology as a comparison, where something like an apex forest is both stable and diverse. And this is made possible because it has a very slow changing set of energy inputs. If the soil composition was constantly changing in a forest, there would be regular events of trees dying off and getting replaced with less mature species, resulting in both less stability and diversity. The land would also be likely to get overtaken by invasive species, as you can observe on patches of land that are routinely disturbed, like the side of a highway.

I can't find the link right now, but a fascination of mine has been all potato diets (the potato hack). One guy who did this (or maybe there was a study) tested his microbiome before and after, and the after test showed a much healthier balance of species and a greatly increased diversity. At the time I remember being surprised by the increased diversity, as I, like most people, assume greater diversity of food would result in a greater diversity of bacterial species. But I have to imagine that a general characteristic of diverse diets is that they're not very stable. If someone is eating 100 different foods, it's unlikely they eat all of those 100 every day, so there is a constantly changing input to the gut, which would make for a constantly changing bacterial colony, which in theory would result in reduced diversity and regular dieoff events.

This all makes a lot of sense too if you think about hunter gatherers and early agricultural peoples. They may have eaten a large number of plants and animals in the course of a year, but I imagine their diet would have rotated very slowly. So maybe they're foraging or growing a few things one month and that comprises the majority of their diet for a month or two. Then new things come into season and the diet shifts, and the microbiome shifts with it. This is much more stable than modern humans that eat Thai food on monday, burgers on Tuesday, Mexican on Wednesday, and then Salad on Thursday when they're feeling bad about their food choices. It's only in the modern age with long distance shipping and refrigeration that we've had the luxury of changing our diets on the daily. Is this abundance of choice killing our guts?

I think I'm going to experiment with a simple diet to see if it can fix my gut issues (IBS, maybe SIBO). An all potato diet seems too boring, but I think I can handle potato, steak, and broccoli, which sounds pretty similar to a bodybuilder's diet. A ratio of 6:2:1 by weight (potato:broccoli:steak) meets all nutritional requirements, other than coming in a tad low in calcium. Daily intake of 60oz potatoes, 20oz broccoli, 10oz sirloin steak, and 1/2 tsp calcium carbonate satisfies all dietary requirements and clocks in at 2200 calories. Has anyone tried a simple and consistent diet like this, did it help your gut?

I like your train of thought here. We also need to consider that in the "old" days food underwent traditional preperation (sourdough, nixtamalisation etc.) and was severly lacking in genetic modification, nutritional empty soil and prolly the most important biozides (fungizides, pesticides, insecticides etc.)

Now my personal experience is just a anecdote that doesn't have to mean anything. But i feel as if not the food itself or the modern technuiqes of shipping and refridgerating are the main issue, but the pollution of the environment. It doesn't seem to matter what i eat or how i eat, my body is just in sever agony by some kind of damage it had. Thats just me.

EMF, Endocrine disruptors (plastic, chemicals from medication in our water/food) and so on and so forth ruin the microbiome more than any food can i believe.

I still try to wrap my head around, how some people can keep living well and without much issues under these conditions and others break at one point in their life. Is it realy stress related (work, relationship etc.)? Is it that one person just has alot more time for regeneration? Did some just grow up with better nutrition? Better immune training (playing outside, in the sun, almost no EMF exposure)?

Is it possible that certain biofilm and bacteria population usually stay strong and keeps us healthy by providing vitamins and butyrate and we stay mostly healthy until thoose are damaged to much by alcohol, food poisioning, chemicals etc.? getting replaced by less useful bacteria?


The influence of these modern chemicals are more sever then i think we give them credit for:


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu0IXMTFY9Q&t=277s



I am not saying that the kind of food we eat doesn't matter. I'll be looking forward for your results.
 

aliml

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Why You Should Eat Seasonally​


by John Douillard

In nature, the diet of herbivores in the wild changes dramatically from season to season and, as if like a symphony, the microbes needed to digest each seasons harvest thrive with each seasonal shift. Seasonal microbes flourish on cue to digest the woody, branches and barks of winter, the greens of spring and the acorns of fall.
Microbes suited to digest the soft leaves and bitter roots of spring populate the rumen (the first chamber of the stomach) of herbivores in the spring and vanish by winter, while microbes that feed on the tougher wood fibers that flourish in the winter are replaced by a new population of microbes that digest the fruits and greens of summer. A similar microbial shift should take place in the human digestive system.

The Microbial Circle of Life


The microbes that make up the body’s microbiome come from the soil that nourishes the plants we eat. Each plant seasonally attracts certain beneficial microbes from the soil, creating a symbiotic relationship. Plants seem to benefit from certain microbes, and certain microbes seem to benefit from the nutrients of certain plants.
With each seasonal shift, the microbiology of the soil changes, the chemistry of the plants change and the microbes that attach themselves to the roots, stems and leaves of each plant shift like a changing of the guard. When we eat these plants in season, we consume the nutrients in the plant as well as the microbes that are attracted to and attached to that plant. We are also ingesting the foods that the microbes who are attached to these plants love.
These microbes make up a microbial community within us – which makes up 90% of the cells in our human bodies.

Consequences of Eating Out of Season


When we do not eat seasonally, our microbiome is quickly disconnected to the intelligence of nature, and much of our genetic dependence on seasonal microbes is lost.
Let me share a quote from the book The Forest Unseen to illustrate this point: (2)
“Sudden changes in the diet can disrupt this elegant molding of the rumen community and its environment. If a deer is fed corn or leafy greens in the middle of winter, its rumen will be knocked off balance, acidity will rise uncontrollably, and gases will bloat the rumen. Indigestion of this kind can be lethal.”

In other words, when an herbivore eats foods that are not in season, it causes a drastic shift in its microbiology, leading to severe indigestion that can actually kill the herbivore. Cows, for example, when taken from pastures and fed grain instead of seasonal grasses, have to be medicated to settle their stomachs.
I realize that we are omnivores and not herbivores, but clearly this is food for thought! We are as connected to the cycles of nature as are the herbivores, albeit in a different way. If eating foods that are not in season can kill a deer, then is this a message for us begin to respect the diet that has been right in front of us all these years?

There is no doubt that the microbes in our intestinal tract change according to diet and seasonal influences. Perhaps we are more resilient to these changes, but are we immune to them?
Without a diet rich in seasonally-changing microbes, our intestines are often populated by space-occupying microbes that, while not necessarily bad, are not beneficial either. They take up real estate in the intestines and render the gut, its immunity, and many other adaptive processes to function less than optimally. Without the influx of seasonal microbes to boost our digestive strength and support a diverse community of essential and beneficial bacteria, we become extremely vulnerable and often hyper-sensitive to our environment and foods.

A Holy Case for Raw Cheese


I cannot think of a better example of this then sharing a favorite story from one of my previous articles: (1)

Since the 1970’s, Sister Noella, a Benedictine nun, has been making raw cheese on the abbey farm. This is not just any cheese. It is one of France’s most prized cheeses: Saint-Nectaire. It is a raw milk, semi-solid, fungal ripened cheese that has been the pride of France’s Auvergne region since the seventeenth century.
The problem is that her abbey is in Connecticut and, according to the FDA, raw cheese is illegal. According to the FDA, cheese must be made in a sterile environment in stainless steel containers. According to Sister Noella, Saint-Nectaire must be made in an ancient wooded barrel with a wooden spoon. Her spoon, of course, had a carved cross on the paddle to stir the cheese.

Nothing about her cheese room was sterile, or ever could be. In her thirties, she went back to school and got a PhD in microbiology to be able to prove to the FDA her cheese was safe.

PhD in tow, she made two batches of cheese. One batch in sterile stainless steel containers with pasteurized milk, and another batch in her unsterile room with her unsterile wooden barrel, unsterile wooden spoon and, of course, raw milk. Into both batches she introduced a significant amount of E. coli – a toxic bacteria.

After the cheeses were made, the cheese made with E. coli in the sterile containers had high levels of E. coli, and the cheese made in the wooden barrel had next to none!

Interestingly, we all have E. coli in our guts from time to time. In a healthy gut with lots of good microbes, the introduction of E. coli will rally the good bugs to knock out the pathogens. In Sister Noella’s wooden barrel, the good bacteria that hid in the old wooden crevices out-performed the bad bacteria.
Since then, the FDA has left her alone to make her raw, unsterile cheese.

References​

  1. Pollan, Michael. Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation. Penguin Press. New York, 2013.
  2. Haskell, David George. The Forest Unseen. Penguin Books, 2012.

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Peatful

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