Your Gut Microbiome May Influence Your Heart Health (and Everything Else) – Here’s How to Take Care of It

Contributed by Ryan Peterson.

If you’re anything like most people, you’ve likely got a lot of respect for the health of your heart. And rightly so. When your heart is functioning optimally, everything in your life is simply better. Your mood will be better, you will be better able to perform strenuous physical activity, without as much stress, you’ll be healthier across the board, and – perhaps most importantly – you can expect to live significantly longer.

When people think about guarding their cardiovascular health, they generally think about things like eating wholegrain cereal, and getting plenty of time in on the treadmill or exercise bike.

All of these things are great, but have you ever stopped to consider how your gut microbiome may influence your heart health – and for that matter, every other facet of your health, in general?

For a long time, gut health was considered to be something that only really had implications for your physical comfort. Things like irritable bowel disorder were obviously noted to be unpleasant, but not much was understood beyond that.

Recent findings, however, – as detailed in Tim Spector’s book “The Diet Myth” have blown the lid off previous assumptions, and have driven home just how important gut health is, and why a trip to a GI doctor might be a great idea.

So, here are some tips for taking care of your gut microbiome.

Eat plenty of microbially active foods

Shortly after the germ theory of disease was introduced to the world, it was followed by general phobia of everything that might be termed a microbe. This was such a prominent fear, that it was used as a selling point by the inventors of soda bread. Since conventional bread was made using yeast, that clearly meant it was full of harmful creatures. Soda bread, made without yeast, was therefore clean and healthy.

These days, however, we know that the more “microbially dense” a food is, the better it is likely to be for you.

Easily the top way of improving your gut health is to begin eating more “probiotic foods.” These include things such as kombucha, kefir, blue cheese, and fermented vegetable such as sauerkraut. All of these foods will help to colonize your gut with healthy bacteria. Just be aware of whether or not the food is not cooked or pasteurized. Pasteurization is used to eliminate pathogens and extend the shelf life of foods but it also can kill the microbes, as can cooking.

Make fiber a priority

Everyone knows that fiber is meant to be healthy – it’s meant to be good for the heart, it’s meant to be good for keeping us “regular”, and it’s meant to be good for maintaining an optimal BMI.

Fiber also serves another essential function. It acts as the food for the friendly microbes that live in our guts.

Specifically, you want to go for what’s known as “soluble” fiber. This is the kind of fiber that dissolves in water, and can be fermented by the microbes in your gut, in order to produce food for them.

Inulin is an example of a form of soluble fiber and can be found in foods such as Jerusalem artichokes.

Insoluble fiber, on the other hand, is stuff like bran. It helps to add bulk to stool and has health benefits, but it’s not that you want when it comes to feeding your gut microbes.

Opt for home-cooked meals in every possible instance, and avoid processed and fast food

In “The Diet Myth”, Tim Spector reveals a remarkable anecdote, in which he used his son as a dietary guinea pig, in order to see what had happened to his gut microbiome on different diets.

When his son was following a fast food, McDonald’s based diet, his gut microbiome was absolutely devastated. The biodiversity in his gut plummeted dramatically, and by all appearances, he was not in very good health.

It’s unlikely to come as a surprise to anyone that fast food diet is unhealthy. But it is pretty remarkable that it can have such a terrible impact on the health of the friendly bacteria living in your gut.

When it comes to your gut health, take a lesson from the food writer Michael Pollan’s book. Eat whole, home-cooked food, and leave all the ready meals out. If you want to eat ice cream, fine. But make it yourself from scratch, with whole ingredients.