In this article, Probioform will share the 5 surprising things that harm your gut bacteria. The gut of any human is the home of trillions of bacteria responsible to keep you healthy. These unicellular organisms also play a dominating role in improving weight management and heart health.

Moreover, they could even make the blood and sugar regulate properly. These micro-organisms can also improve the health of brain health and can also treat other diseases.  

As you know different bacteria can be found in a body some of them are friendly bacterias while others aren’t so friendly. These friendly bacterias could improve the production of vitamin K, digestion of the body, reduction of harmful bacteria, and production of folate. 

The population of these friendly bacterias and the overall health of a body can be negatively affected by a certain day-to-day diet and lifestyle. Now without any delay let’s dive into the discussion.

1. Inadequate Prebiotic Consumption

The main task of probiotics is to support the growth of friendly bacterias in the gut by passing through the gut without being digested like any other fiber.

Although the fibers can also be obtained through other natural sources. For instance, a 50% fiber content can be obtained by using a high fiber fruit such as an apple with — indigestible pectin.

The lack of probiotics in the daily diet could be dangerous for the health of anyone. As it slows down the production diversity and development of the gut flora.

Therefore you have to start using the incorporated foods rich in partially digestible or indigestible fiber to minimize this threat. This includes chickpeas, asparagus, onions, oats, garlic, nuts, Jerusalem artichokes, beans, lentils, and bananas. 

The task of maintaining a fiber-rich diet plan could be quite difficult through natural sources. So the best option that remains here is supplementing with probiotic fibers.

Based on the study ran on 30 obese women. A daily intake of probiotic supplements over 3 months could rapidly increase the growth of Faecalibacterium and Bifidobacterium known as friendly bacterias.

2. Inadequate Exercise

Exercise is the most suitable option for a healthy gut. Although some people don’t give it that much importance and skip the exercise for various reasons. This could lead to various negative side effects on the biological system.

Inadequate exercise could also give rise to stress levels and weight gain. This could lead to a higher chance of developing a chronic disease which can put the flora at disadvantage.

The importance of exercise can be proved by research in 2014 on the gut. In this study, it was found that professional rugby players “had a higher diversity of gut microorganisms representing 22 distinct phyla”.

This was almost twice the figure observed in the control group matched for gender, body size, and age.

According to another study based on the differences in gut microbiota profile between women with an active lifestyle and sedentary women. The results of this study indicate that “unlike the sedentary active women could enjoy a higher population of friendly bacteria such as Akkermansia and Bifidobacterium“.

Therefore based on these researches it can be concluded that regular exercise at low to moderate intensities could support the gut flora.

3. Excessive Alcohol Consumption

You must know that how bad excessive alcohol consumption could be for your brain, liver, and heart. But you should also know that chronic alcohol consumption could also induce dysbiosis and affect gut health.

According to the study based on 41 alcoholics and 10 individuals with little or no consumption of alcohol. It was found that unlike the non-alcoholics 27% of the alcoholics suffered dysbiosis in the microbiome.

Another research is the overall comparison of effects caused by three different kinds of alcohol. This includes the effect of red, gin wine, and de-alcoholized red wine on the health of the gut.

During the research, it was clear that gin wine could negatively affect the production of friendly bacterias while red wine could improve it when consumed moderately.

4. Not Eating a Wide Range of Foods

The diversity of the gut flora is considered to be very important for the health of the microbiome. As it could recover the body from harmful physiological disturbances.  But unfortunately, the bulk of the diversity has been missing over the past few decades, especially from the western diet.

The reason behind it is the economic pressures associated with the increased production of food. According to this “75 percent of the world’s food is now generated from only 12 plants and five animal species”.

These factors could affect the microbiome very badly as the western diet rarely even includes all of these sources of food.

Another study run in 2010 includes an intestinal microbiota from the children characterized by a modern western diet vs those on a rural diet. As the rural diet is based on whole foods with high fiber content. The researchers determined that the children from a rural diet had a more diverse gut flora and better gut health.

Now, what would you prefer? Eating a more diverse array of foods — particularly whole foods. Whole foods contain more nutrients as compared to their highly processed counterparts ideal to support the growth of diverse bacterial species.

5. Inadequate Sleep

Sleep deprivation could be the root of various diseases in the body. This includes obesity and heart disease. On the other hand, different research studies indicate that it could also affect the microbiome of health.

The research in 2016 is based on the evaluation of the effects of short-term partial sleep deprivation on gut microbiota. It was found that little but noticeable changes could occur in the gut flora after two days of sleep deprivation (4 hours per night).

An increase in Firmicutes: Bacteroidetes ratio, higher abundances of families Coriobacteriaceae and Erysipelotrichaceae, and lower abundance of Tenericutes (all P < 0.05) could be found among the sleep-deprived individuals.

Therefore to keep the microbiome healthy it’s strongly recommended to take at least 6-9 hours of sleep each night. To make this happen you must set a regular bedtime, cut out caffeine at least 6 hours to your bedtime.

In the end, don’t forget to turn off the lights especially the blue lights emitted by any other electronic device.

Final Thought!

After exploring the whole topic it’s clear that to maintain or achieve a healthy microbiome. You must take more probiotics, eat a wider range of whole foods and reduce the consumption of alcohol. In the end, for long-term gut health, you’ll also need to sleep more and do exercise regularly.