Here are a list of potential ways we can change our gut microbial communities: Exercise, life-style, and medications. Overall, these topics are fairly broad, boasting both beneficial, detrimental, and neutral behaviors for our gut microbiota!
One behavior that we may not typically think will influence our gut microbiota is exercise! While exercising itself may not have a direct impact on our gut microbiota, studies show that changing our body fat percentage, muscle mass, cardiovascular health may have positive impacts on our gut microbiota, leading to increased abundance of beneficial microbial populations. This may play a deeper role in helping patients suffering from Type 2 Diabetes as exercise may help regulate their metabolic health. For instance, studies have shown that there may be a strong link between gut microbial health and diabetes. This along with other external factors like behavior, dietary habits, and physical activity all add to potential risk factors for developing Type 2 diabetes. I think it is really interesting that exercise may play a larger role overall, improving not only our metabolic health and body composition, but also benefiting our gut microbial populations at the same time!
Additionally, our diet may play a large role in maintaining a healthy gut microbiome. For example, in the Guinane and Cotter 2013 paper, they discuss the importance of a healthy diet in maintaining gut microbial health! They noted how differences in living environments may also influence our gut microbial health, manipulating populations of specific and important gut bacteria, specifically in elderly populations.
Of course, when thinking about ways we can manipulate our gut bacteria populations, medications are a prominent way to manipulate our gut microbiome. In the the 2013 paper by Guinane and Cotter, they discuss the emergence of probiotics and prebiotics, dietary supplements that aim to add healthy gut bacteria to our everyday diet. While the data on the actual benefits of these are limited, future developments within this field may yield be very potentially beneficial, especially for populations that lack healthy gut bacteria diversity! Additionally, there is also antimicrobial medications. The invention or discovery of antibiotic medications have significantly altered the way we few our microbes. Antibiotic medications have shown to dramatically alter our gut microbiota, potentially diminishing our ability to adequately nourish ourselves and be detrimental to our overall metabolism. Guinane and Cotter, 2013, also discussed studies that have shown that antibiotics are selective as well.
At the end of the day, it may be pretty difficult to drastically manipulate or introduce our selves to healthy gut microbes, but emerging studies have shown that we can manipulate specific populations of gut bacteria through changes in our life-style, exercise habits, and medications!
