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As a nutritional therapist I know it’s more a case of you are what you can digest than simply what you eat. I’m always grilling my clients on their digestive health and know, as many of you will, that good gut health is paramount to optimal health and wellness.
So I’ve been excited to read about some of the latest research collaborations and directions expanding our knowledge into the fascinating depths of the human gut and it’s role in human health.
The bacteria in our gut contain millions of microbial gene, the microbiome, which interact with the human genes to create a ‘super organism’[1]. In a recent review article a team from Imperial Collage highlighted that the microbiome has a direct influence on the pathology of a huge, wide variety of conditions and disease states including autism, asthma, depression, hypertension, peripheral vascular disease, obesity, biliary disease as well as usual suspects IBD and colon cancer. It’s also been shown that the microbiome can affect an individual’s metabolism and therefore response to medications. This has a huge implication for personalised health care in the future and supports what many of us have learnt from our own training and clinical practice, that gut flora can be modulated for the benefit of health.
A number of research groups are working on establishing a core microbiome, i.e. the essential bacterial species or strains within humans that may be essential to optimal health. One of these, the MetaHIT project, is undertaking the biggest census of the bugs living inside our guts. The European study has taken samples from 124 subjects; a mixture of healthy, overweight and people suffering with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and identified the genes of the intestinal microbials. So far, they’ve found 3.3 million different genes from the samples taken, that’s 150 times more genes than in the human genome. About 40% of those are shared with at least 50% of the group, so we all have a core of the same bacteria in out guts. Each individual in the study has at least 160 different bacterial species. An ongoing part of the study is to look at the function of these bacteria and work out which are contributing to our health and which seem to be more present in those with bowel disease or with obesity[2] What is clearly emerging is that human health is a function of our human genes, our environment AND our microbiome and once again, we know we can assess and then modulate the microbiome via functional stool testing, probiotics, prebiotics, dietary intervention and appropriate anti-microbial agents.
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The Rome Foundation[3] has a mission to improve the lives of people with functional GI disease. Two of their working teams are looking at areas which have great relevance and interest to our field.
One team led by Magnus Simren is looking into ‘the role of the intestinal microbiota in functional gastrointestinal disorders’. One of their aims is to establish whether patients with IBS have abnormal colonic bowel flora and small intestine bacterial overgrowth. To have this established in a peer reviewed large-scale review would be really significant. They plan to publish their review by the end of the year so watch this space!
The second team has a remit to explore the role of food and diet in IBS type problems. The project synopsis recognises that while many IBS sufferers suspect the involvement of food with their symptoms (e.g. symptoms worsen after meals) there is little recognition of food involvement amongst many medical practitioners, in part due to lack of robust empirical evidence on the link. Once again this could be very significant in helping to build a larger empirical evidence base for the role of food in functional bowel problems
Three Metametrix test profiles to consider:
GI Effects stool test offers comprehensive PCR/DNA based analysis of gut microbiota for greater accuracy of aerobes and anaerobes and greater sensitivity for yeasts and parasites.
Organix dysbiosis profile measures the by products of bacterial and yeast metabolism excreted in the urine.
Blood spot IgG4 offers a convenient way to assess delayed IgG4 immune responses to common foods.
All available from Nutrition Geeks exclusively in the UK, for more information visit www.nutritiongeeks.co.uk
Angela Walker BSc Nut Med mBANT CNHC registered
Technical Advisor, Nutrition Geeks
[1] Kinross et al (2011) Gut Microbiome-host interactions in health and disease Genome Medicine 3:13
