Human biology science is ever evolving specifically when it comes to Gut Microbiome. So what exactly is Postbiotics? It has been referred to by different names in the past. Postbiotics are byproducts, metabolites or beneficial compounds released by our gut microbiome when they digest or metabolise the food we eat.
There are a number of postbiotics which you may know & would have heard of. One of such beneficial metabolites is Butyrate which we have discussed through our various content & videos.
Over a period of time, many scientists & researchers have studied & found a number of such beneficial compounds that have anti-inflammatory impact, strengthen our intestinal lining & keep pathogenic bacteria at bay.
These postbiotics which are byproducts of the food digested by your gut microbiome have their individual benefits & in fact our focus is consuming foods that make our gut microbiome produce these beneficial & anti-inflammatory compounds. It is these postbiotics that regulate our satiety level & blood sugar that helps in losing weight, overcoming risk of diabetes & lowering inflammation, the root cause of all chronic diseases.
There are a number of foods that our body finds it hard to digest & you may prefer avoiding such foods thinking that it may negatively impact your digestive system. However, it is the other way round- these foods are meant to feed microbes living in your gut & in fact support health of our digestive tract. One of such foods we generally discuss is fiber which not only helps our body to get rid of toxins but also provide food for out gut microbes that in turn gets converted into easy to digest nutrients & enables our microbes to release beneficial postbiotics ( or metabolites, although no standard fibre rich food can be considered as a part of our dietary choices, like other foods, fibre intake should be unique for each individual based on which microbes are present and active in an individual’s microbiome). This is fibre is not postbiotic but a prebiotic & it travels through our digestive system once it enters our body through the mouth.
The fibrous foods like whole grains, vegetables, and fruits are broken down into small portions by out teeth & as our mouth begins to secrete saliva, our body produces enzymes that help to break down the simpler carbohydrates and sugars to help our stomach kick start the digestion process
The fibre is not easy to break down & travels to lower digestive tract to make food for microbes living in the gut. So ultimately, fibre started as food in your mouth but ultimately gets digested & converted into beneficial compounds by your gut microbes.
You would have learnt a lot about butyrate (as mentioned at the beginning of this blog), the most important short chain fatty acid(SCFA) produced by some specific microbes in our gut as a result of fibre digested/fermented by them. Butyrate is not the only postbiotics, there are others as well such as Propionate, Acetate & many others which have properties to support your body & heal your gut health.
Some of the benefits Postbiotics offer include:
- Overcoming weight gain & Obesity: Some of the postbiotics have been actually liked to overcoming obesity & reducing BMI
- Killing Pathogens: Objective of having a diet aligned with our individual biology is to make sure that our gut is colonised with commensal & beneficial microbes that makes sure that they promote beneficial microbial activities & suppress proinflammatory activities. Adopting right dietary choices makes sure that our gut microbiome maximise production of postbiotics which kills pathogens.
- Digestive issues: Some of the postbiotics released by our gut microbiome as a result of digestion of food we eat can help in overcoming digestive discomfort, IBS & even diarrhea.
- Minimizing Inflammation: A lot of us experience inflammation in the gut be it Ulcerative Colitis, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Crohn’s disease or even GERD. These issues can hamper our digestion process, specifically fibre rich foods. By feeding our gut with the right foods married to our unique biology, we can ensure that our gut is releasing the right postbiotics that overcome inflammation.
We at Genefitletics, decode every single biochemical activity taking place inside the body to tell you the level of postbiotics production & provide you dietary recommendations based on analysis of your biological data to promote production of these postbiotics. Click here to know more: www.genefitletics.com
Sources:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7468815/
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