‘Microbiome’ is a hot topic right now for anyone interested in health; but you may be wondering what exactly it is? You’ve potentially heard about the good bacteria living within your digestive system, and may have even thought about taking a probiotic to support them. Well it’s this internal community – actually encompassing a massive 38 trillion microbes (not just bacteria) – that are collectively referred to as your commensal microbiome. When healthy and balanced, your microbiome has wide-reaching health effects, such as synthesising important vitamins you need; helping to modulate and boost your immune system; assisting with waste elimination (therefore supporting healthy bowel function); and even influencing your mood.

However, your diet and lifestyle choices can negatively impact the health of your microbiome; resulting in a reduction in both the numbers and/or diversity of the organisms within your gut. Disruption to your internal microbial community can then create an environment where pathogenic (disease causing) organisms have the opportunity to grow and prosper. This state of imbalance is termed ‘dysbiosis’, and can lead to a plethora of negative health effects, including digestive complaints, nutrient deficiencies, or maybe a compromised immune system (which can lead to allergies and/or frequent illness) – these are all common outcomes when the microbiome becomes imbalanced.

The following are five of the most common diet and lifestyle factors that may negatively impact the health of your microbiome, along with some tips to help you re-establish a healthy and thriving microbial community once more.

Five ways you can upset your microbiome:

1. Eating a low fibre diet: as your gut microbes rely on the fibre in your food for fuel, a low fibre diet leads to a reduction in the diversity of your microbiome.
   

   Interestingly, evidence now shows those who consume more than 30 different types of plants/vegetables each week have a much more diverse microbiome compared to those who consume 10 or fewer types of plants weekly.

2. Alcohol intake: the consumption of alcohol can result in dysbiotic changes in your intestinal microbiome, and also triggers gastrointestinal inflammation. If you’re consuming more than one standard drink per day, your microbiome’s probably keen for you to abstain a bit more often!
3. Unmanaged stress: when you are stressed, the release of the stress hormone cortisol, and adrenaline sensitise your body to inflammation, including gut inflammation. This disrupts the gut environment, compromising the conditions your beneficial microbes need to flourish.
4. Leading a sedentary lifestyle: lack of exercise has also been linked to reduced microbial diversity in the gut – another reason to get moving!
5. Antibiotic use: a round of antibiotics does lead to some loss of core commensal organisms (antibiotics are supposed to kill off bacteria however in this instance the good stuff goes too). This leaves the gut susceptible to microbiome imbalances and dysfunction. Due to this disruption, up to 10% of people experience gastrointestinal side effects from antibiotic use, referred to as antibiotic-associated diarrhoea (AAD).

Do any of these situations apply to you? Fortunately, there are a few things you can do to support your microbiome and help correct any imbalance.

Fighting, Fixing and Fuelling

Addressing the five diet and lifestyle factors listed above is important for improving the health and diversity of your microbiome. Managing your stress levels, utilising antibiotics only when specifically needed (and taking stain-specific probiotic to restore your microbiome if you do), moderating your alcohol intake, and regularly exercising will all have your microbiome singing your praises! Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, consuming a diet rich in plant based fibres will provide ample fuel for your beneficial organisms to flourish. See Table 1 below for ideas on foods your microbiome loves.

Nevertheless, there are situations where pathogenic organisms have the opportunity to establish within your gut and create dysbiosis, requiring specific natural formulations to address it. In this instance, antimicrobial herbal medicines can be employed, including pomegranate (Punica granatum), nigella (Nigella sativa), and myrrh (Commiphora myrrha).These herbs work to eliminate unwanted organisms within the gut, and have even shown to be as effective as their pharmaceutical counterparts in helping to reduce pathogenic populations in scientific research.

However, while eliminating pathogenic species can begin to address an imbalanced microbiome, this is only one part of the puzzle. You also need to focus on regenerating and rebuilding the diversity of your commensal microbiome, which can be achieved with specific probiotic strains such as:

• • Lactobacillus rhamnosus : one of the most studied probiotic stains in the world, research shows LGG^® administration to promote the growth and function of key core commensal bacteria.
  • Saccharomyces cerevisiae (boulardii) (SB): multiple investigations have shown that boulardiireduces antibiotic-associated loss of bacteria, whilst also supporting the rapid restoration of the microbiome after antibiotic use.
  • Lactobacillus acidophilus and Bifidobacterium animalis lactis are two strains also highly indicated to protect and support a healthy microbiome.

So whilst there are factors that can upset your microbiome, be assured there is also a multitude of natural medicines, diet and lifestyle options you can harness to encourage it’s health too, and hence the wellbeing of your whole body. Many of these tips are under your control, but if you feel you need some extra help and support with antimicrobial herbs and/or strain-specific probiotics talk to your healthcare Practitioner about a tailored microbiome-restoring treatment plan to suit your needs. Your beneficial bugs will thank you for it!

Are you sick of always being sick? Do you ever feel like a sitting duck waiting to be taken down by the latest pathogen doing the office rounds? Or perhaps you’ve tried to remember when the last time was you got through a whole winter season without several bouts of illness? If either of these thoughts have crossed your mind then you need to be getting some immune ‘R n R’; that is – better immune resistance and resilience.

An immune system lacking either can make you susceptible to recurrent bouts of illness. For example, if your immune system is struggling to reclaim it’s vitality after one bout of illness, then you will be susceptible to the next lot of bugs doing the rounds and hence you come down with a secondary infection. This can create the illusion that a particularly horrible virus must be on your tail. However, in this scenario, your dragging symptoms may not be entirely caused by the power of the pathogen in your system, but due to a weakened immune response, unable to resist the invader. As such, that re-appearing tickly throat or glands swelling up again can be a tell-tale sign of your immune system losing ground.

Restoring Resilience Starts With Lifestyle

No one is exempt from the many factors that can hinder your immune system – stress, lack of sleep and the inevitable balancing act of modern day life – all of which deplete our energy, hindering our degree of immune resistance and resilience. Interestingly, even your thoughts can influence your recovery time from an infection, highlighting the importance of developing a healthy mind-set. Nourishing habits to support mental wellbeing include making time to promote relaxation such as meditation, as well as light exercise; both particularly useful in reducing the immunosuppressive effects of an overactive stress response, which can simply be due to a busy life, or actual stressful events. On the other hand, ‘coping’ strategies such as consuming alcohol and smoking do the opposite – increasing your risk of infection and disease. This goes to show that positive lifestyle choices can support your road recovery, and help you break the cycle of recurrent infection.

Eating Your Way to Recovery…and Resilience

Most people are aware that eating a good diet pays dividends, but how well do you actually nourish your body during those times you feel most exhausted and fragile? You’ve potentially heard about the ‘flight and fight’ response, but did you know that the opposite of this phrase is ‘rest and digest’? Real rest is achieved by taking enough time to fully recover when you do become unwell, and acknowledging how you can best meet your needs by ensuring you are resting enough at busy times. Digest refers to the process of assimilating the nutrients from your diet, so healthy digestion is crucial to good health…and good immune function. If you have any digestive issues – speak to your healthcare Practitioner who can help investigate what’s going on.

Some foods offer significant advantages when it comes to a robust immune system. Firstly, warming foods such as crockpot stews and soups save your body time and effort breaking down raw or dense ingredients, leaving you more energy for healing if you become unwell. Secondly, consuming protein-rich foods such as eggs, legumes, nuts, and seeds ensure you have adequate nutritional resources to create new armies of immune cells, to orchestrate the destruction of a pathogenic bugs when you do come into contact with them. Finally, nutrients which are tricky to obtain, either due to low soil levels or dietary restriction, should be bolstered through supplementation where necessary – your Practitioner can help you assess if these are required. Key natural medicines, if you are lacking, ensures your body is adequately supported by the essential nutrients required to promote an active immune response and facilitate better resilience.

Natural Ingredients Have Your Back

You’ve probably heard there are certain probiotics, herbs and nutrients used to promote good health, but did you know that many of these natural ingredients actually work with your own immune system rather than just being a ‘Band-Aid’ for symptoms? For instance, nutrients such as zinc and vitamin D provide protection against infectious agents by reinforcing the strength of the immune barrier between you and the outside world, namely your gut lining. Furthermore, the immunostimulatory constituents (called polysaccharides) found in certain medicinal mushrooms including Trametes versicolor (coriolus) and Ganoderma lucidum (reishi), as well as in the herb Astragalus membranaceus(astragalus) activate several of the internal agents you need for healthy immune system surveillance and resilience (see Figure 1).

These actions include increasing what’s known as secretory immunoglobulin A on the mucosal surface lining your gut, as well as promoting the activity of immune cells called macrophages (which translates to ‘large eaters’ giving you a picture of what they do to pathogens!) and natural killer cells, whose task is to destroy infection-causing invaders.

Taking a natural medicine approach to your health offers you so many proactive ways to improve your immune resilience in order to prevent ongoing episodes of immune dysfunction…namely illness! By addressing the underlying causes of why you keep getting sick in a holistic way, you can re-write your immune story into one which features resistance and resilience as hero’s and focus instead on enjoying all the things in life you love.