We have all heard the expression, “you are what you eat,” and it is perfectly true! If you understand that nutrition not only supplies energy to make the body function but also supplies the building blocks used to create the vital structures within the body, structures that have functions, molecules, cells, tissues, organs, etc., then you get it! For optimal function, you need optimal structures and for that you need optimal nutrition. A good diet supplies optimal nutrition in support of optimal health and a bad diet does not. Unfortunately, the majority of the population does not follow recommended dietary guidelines,¹ thus creating a need for appropriate nutritional supplements as recommended by the U.S. Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN).²

However, the story does not end there. The diet and nutritional intake that is optimal for us is also optimal for the bacteria that reside in the digestive tract. More and more researchers are discovering how important the right kind and balance of intestinal tract bacteria is to our health and how that is influenced by diet. According to a recent publication, our plains-dwelling ancestors ate mostly plants and consumed more than 100 grams of dietary fiber daily.³ Dietary fibers are prebiotics; they are nutrition for the bacteria in the digestive tract. As the authors stated, “with total dietary intake of fiber in the USA averaging less than 20 grams per day, from a remarkably limited number of sources, there should be no doubt that our so-called ‘westernized’ diet of highly processed carbohydrates and reduced quantity and diversity of fermentable substrates has resulted in a nutritional state that may be causing measurable shifts in bacterial species in the microbiome.” In other words, our modern diet has resulted in a change in the kind of bacteria in the digestive tract and their balance.

Why Is Digestive Bacteria Important?

Disruptive changes in digestive tract bacteria can have a negative impact on health. It is somewhat commonly known that aspects of the immune system are influenced by bacterial colonization in the digestive tract and that disturbances in the bacterial balance can result in dysfunction of immune cells.⁴ It is also known that microbial populations in the digestive tract are different between overweight and lean people.⁵ Now a new study⁶ takes it one step further and shows that, in mice colonized with human gut bacteria, feeding them with a high-fat, high-sugar, Western-style diet caused a rapid change in the population of gut bacteria compared to mice fed a low-fat diet. Furthermore, simply transplanting the bacteria from the high-fat fed mice into germ-free mice caused the recipients to accumulate more body fat, even on a low-fat diet. In other words, there is strong evidence being developed that what you eat has a profound effect on the bacteria in the digestive tract, positively or negatively, and the bacteria, in turn, positively or negatively impact the health of the host.

Understanding the importance of this relationship is why Mannatech’s researchers, and their international collaborators, are studying the interaction between Ambrotose® products and human digestive tract bacteria. This collaboration resulted in a recent publication⁷ that documented the positive impact of Ambrotose® complex and Advanced Ambrotose® powder on human digestive tract bacteria, which could help to explain the broad range of systemic health benefits that users commonly report.

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Dr. Stephen Boyd is Senior Director of Medical Affairs for Mannatech, Incorporated.

¹ US Department of Agriculture, US Department of Health and Human Services, Joint Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee Report, 2010

² “Life…Supplemented” website of the Council for Responsible Nutrition, http://www.lifesupplemented.org

³ Leach J.D., et al., British Journal of Nutrition, Published online, doi: 10.1017/S0007114510000966

⁴ Round J.L., et al., Nature Reviews Immunology 9, 313–323 (May 2009)

⁵ Nature 444, 1009–1010 (21 Dec. 2006)

⁶ Turnbaugh P.J., et al., Science Translational Medicine, 1 Issue 6 6ra14; www.sciencemag.org

⁷ Marzorati M., et al., International Journal of Food Microbiology Published online, doi:10.1016/j.ijfoodmicro.2010.02.030.

This article was originally posted at HealthyScience.net.