Whenever we develop infectious disease or experience an attack by virus, as most of us suffered during COVID-19, the discussion about the immune system arises. Our immune responses help to modulate & drive various tasks. The most important response is killing pathogens/making them inactive. A proper & right immune response at time of sickness can help you recover from health on-slot. Since 80% of our immune system is housed in our gut, our gut microbiome plays an important role in right response of the immune system (neither underactive or overactive).
With increase in respiratory illnesses & instances of virus infection (specifically COVID), people are trying to find out means to boost their immunity. Although people have been recommended quick fix & immunity booster foods & supplements, they have not been able to find any respite to their overactive immune response. It is a no brainer since every food is digested differently in every individual. Ultimately, understanding the beneficial relationship with gut microbiome, food an individual eat & immune system has a profound role to play in improving health of your gut & hence right response of our immune system.
Let us discuss in detail how to right size the response of the immune system to bring a balance in our gut microbiome.
Our body is away from a microbe free environment. Rather our body is full of these folks living inside of us that help us maintain internal homeostasis & immunostasis by interacting with other immune cells to modulate the impact of opportunistic pathogens. This community is said to build auto-immunity, minimise inflammation & reduce our vulnerability of infection. Still people ignorant of these scientifically proven & validated biological functions & end up buying & using various cleaning agents such as sanitizers in hope of making these agents strong tools to prevent occurrence of diseases. The fact is these are obnoxious claims which do nothing to keep you away from chronic diseases & virus infections. What matters is communication & interaction taking place between your immune cells & your gut residents inside your body.
Our gut microbiome plays a vital role in orchestrating these communications. Based on the balance of our gut microbiome, our immune system response can be strong or weak, driving us towards or away from infection/chronic diseases. Therefore nurturing our gut microbiome & promoting beneficial microbial activities is the only way to regulate your immune response. Nature has already given us a tool in the food we eat. Our food have inbuilt medicine which drives the relationship between our gut microbiome & the food we eat & can lead to improve our gut health & balance our gut microbiome. The great way you can map your microbial activities with the food you eat is preventative medicine- personalising food as medicine both for chronic diseases as well as virus infections. However, diet & nutrition is misunderstood by a lot of people & end up what the herd is following. The fact is there is nothing called as one solution fits all. Each individual has a unique dietary solution which depends upon multitude of factors of which feeding your gut microbiome right is the most important one.
Therefore we at Genefitletics give you unique recommendations which will be different from those given to your next door neighbor, your friend or even your spouse but the basic goal remains the same, optimizing your gut health.
Learning about the entire ecosystem of your gut microbiome can learn about gut microbial activity- how effectively they are doing their job- for instance are they able to metabolise or breakdown protein effectively or if protein is being fed to protein fermenters who are releasing methane & ammonia & Putrescine which is making your immune system more active than usual & triggering inflammation. This can tell the status of dysfunction inside our body & can be harmful for our gut health & impacting your gut lining. This gut lining is super important since it prevents microbes & food particles & antibodies from renting out real estate not meant for them such as blood, pancreas or lungs.
When our intestinal lining is compromised or if we have leaky gut, it allows these microbes to pass through our intestinal lining & find space in other places they do not belong. Then they release harmful metabolites & toxins which leads to pro-inflammatory reactions that damage tissue of these other organs & lead to multiple chronic health conditions. Maintaining integrity of gut lining is important to regulate our immune response since this excessive pro-inflammatory reaction is nothing but your immune system getting into action more frequently & causing different disease symptoms.
It is important to mention here the role of beneficial & commensal bacteria in regulating & improving your immune response. These folks play an important role in the health of your gut lining by producing beneficial metabolites such as butyrate , a healthy food for our gut lining to compete with pathogens for space. When our gut microbiome has healthy butyrate production, it strengthens our gut lining & in return our gut lining( where most of our immune cells are housed) protects these commensal & beneficial microbes against the pathogens( when they are sensed). In Fact our immune cells are super smart in sensing enzymes & peptides outside the community of beneficial bacteria to signal other immune cells if they are foreign invaders or not! This is one of the ways our beneficial microbes fight against pathogens. Besides, when the population of these pathogens are strong, they can overthrow beneficial ones for space & can acquire special space around our gut lining cells. When our gut microbiome is healthy & balanced, these space are already taken up by beneficial ones, leaving few or no spaces for these pathogens to settle.
Like us humans, these bacteria are susceptible to virus infections. When the population of beneficial microbes are diverse & strong- it facilitates communication among each other when they sense a virus or pathogen. This communication is referred to as quorum sensing & help them react faster to their own immune response. As this happens, they store these activities as “memories” in their genetic code, passing on their immunity to future generations which helps in a healthy beneficial microbial population & are able to counter the impact of virus, thereby optimising gut health.
Some viruses, such as the influenza virus, enter our lungs and require rapid antibody responses from our immune system. The better our gut health, the faster the recognition of the virus, the faster our immune system can work to kill this infection.
For immune cells travelling around the lungs, quick identification of the virus means quick counter attack to these harmful foolks . Several studies have documented that our gut microbiome helps support “adaptive immunity” or our specialized immune response that fights disease by producing antibodies. Some of the byproducts, these beneficial bacteria releases are used as a tool to recognize viruses & then take mechanisms of action to kill them.
To summarise, it is not some obnoxious claim of boosting immunity by taking a standard list of foods & supplements but having right dietary choices that align with your unique biology is the best foot forward to right size your immune system response & strengthen your gut lining. We at Genefitletics can help you build a resilient immune system by digitizing your body to tell you what foods you should consume more often that will promote beneficial microbial activities & which ones you should do away with to suppress release of toxins. For more details, how you can balance your microbiome for a better immune health, visit us here.
Sources: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature18847
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/357/6350/498
https://www.pnas.org/content/108/13/5354
