Aidan Muir:
Hello, and welcome back to episode 35 of the Ideal Nutrition Podcast. I am here with my co-host, Leah Higl, and today we are going to be sharing our top nutrition tips for gut health.
So when talking about gut health, we’re going to start off by talking about the microbiota and what that is. So, basically that’s the collection of microbes [00:00:30] that live in and on the human body that makes up the microbiota. That has an integral role in things like digestion, immune function, brain health, metabolism, and it’s also got a pretty strong link with mood and mental health as well.
Where it becomes interesting is a lot of people when they reach out to me and say, “I want to improve my gut health,” often they’re just talking about IBS symptoms and digestion and stuff like that, when it’s really, really a broad kind of topic. [00:01:00] Those two, they do go hand-in-hand to a certain degree, but they also could have separate kind of influences.
For example, doing a low FODMAP diet could be an effective way to reduce IBS symptoms in a lot of people, but we know that there’s other factors of gut health, like diversity of the microbiome and stuff like that, where going on a low FODMAP diet would reduce the diversity and that’s not in alignment with overall good gut health.
So it’s kind of a complex topic and it really depends on what you’re trying to get out of it, but we’re going to try and give a bit of a broad overview that covers [00:01:30] that. On that topic, making it even more complex is everybody’s looking for a healthy gut microbiome, but obviously there’s no clear consensus definition of that, but there are certain themes that we know matter like that diversity. We know of some healthy populations of bacteria and stuff like that that we’re looking for, so there is definitely some things that we can improve upon pretty much across the board for most people.
Leah Higl:
First thing we’re going to touch on in relation to improving your gut health is a pretty basic one, and [00:02:00] it’s to eat a fiber rich-diet. So, fiber is a type of non-digestible carbohydrate that is found exclusively in plant foods. So, fiber recommendations for adults is 25 grams of fiber per day for women and 30 grams per day for men. I generally tend to just call it 30 across the board to keep it simple. I think everyone can benefit from having at least 30 grams of fiber day-to-day.
It is interesting to note though that the research that we have [00:02:30] on fiber intakes in gut health is that vegans and vegetarians that have fiber intakes of 40+ grams of fiber per day, do tend to have slightly more diverse gut microbiomes. So even at 30 grams per day, I’d say that’s more of a minimum and you can absolutely go above that if you can tolerate it.
Aidan Muir:
Yeah, within reason. It’s pretty much a more is better kind of scenario. That’s also where it gets interesting as well, hey, that’s why I really kind of preach that, hey, gut health [00:03:00] and “digestion or IBS symptoms,” they don’t 100% overlap, because that whole more is better philosophy could fall apart if you take it extremely far.
Aidan Muir:
It’s probably going to lead to bloating, gas production, all those kind of things. So there is a middle ground somewhere in there, but from what we’re measuring in terms of gut bacteria and all those kind of things, it does mostly seem like more is better.
Leah Higl:
More is kind of better to a certain extent for sure when we’re just talking about gut health and diversity of the gut microbiome. But yeah, if you do eat too much too soon [00:03:30] and your gut is not really ready for that, it’s not primed for it, you may experience things like flatulence, gas, same thing, bloating. They’re really common for people that especially are taking on a plant-based diet initially will see, just because of that rapid increase in fiber intake, that they’re going to have some issues in tolerating that initially. But if you’re eating under that minimum recommendation of 30 grams per day, that’s kind of the first step when it comes to gut health. Tick that off the list first.
Aidan Muir:
Yeah, [00:04:00] and the saying I like in relation to that, particularly if you are coming from a lower fiber intake, is start low and go slow. Where it’s kind of like, wherever you’re at, just very slowly build up, don’t try and make a massive change, because making a massive change, probably going to lead to unpleasant and symptoms and stuff like that. Whereas if you slowly build up to it, it’s probably going to work out far better.
Leah Higl:
Yeah, I usually see people make the mistake of just two tablespoons of psyllium husk a day, and then that’s the change they make, and whoa, that’s pretty big step from where they were.
Leah Higl:
Of course, you’re probably going to see [00:04:30] symptoms occur. So generally just trying to increase those plant-based foods slowly over a longer period of time, best way to go about it.
Aidan Muir:
100%. On that topic, I feel like a broken record with this tip since I say it all the time, but it is one of the most clear-cut ones we’ve got where it’s aiming to eat greater than 30 different plant-based foods per week. Where this tip typically stems from is it comes from this research done by the American Gut Project where they had massive sample sizes. It was mostly food frequency questionnaire type kind of research [00:05:00] where they’re like, “How many different plant-based foods per week do you eat?” And then measuring people’s gut microbiomes after that.
What that study or that research really came to the conclusion of is if you compare this extreme scenario of greater than 30 different plant-based foods per week, versus less than 10, there is a very big difference in the gut microbiome. The people who have greater than 30 have a much bigger diversity of their gut microbiome, and also they seem to have more of this healthy populations, all these [00:05:30] kind of things that we’re looking at.
There was also overlap between that and also mental health and stuff like that. They showed little things with that type of research showing that people with mental health conditions typically have microbiomes that are more similar to each other than they are to people without mental health conditions.
Obviously that’s another interesting area of this whole area of research, because that’s the same thing with obesity as well. People with obesity have more similar microbiomes to each other than they do to people without obesity, but it’s kind of like a cause and effect kind of thing. We [00:06:00] know that a lot of these things like eating more fiber, having more diversity of plant-based foods, all these things help, but there are a lot of other things in there, that how much is cause and effect as well?
Leah Higl:
100%. The whole gut health topic is so complicated and a lot of it’s, yeah, chicken or the egg scenario, but at the end of the day, we know that having a really diverse diet is probably pretty beneficial for gut health, bottom line.
Aidan Muir:
Yeah, and on that topic of how do you achieve that, because what if you are in that camp of under 10 [00:06:30] different plant-based foods per week and what if you’re in that camp, but you also have a relatively healthy diet too as well, it could go both ways obviously. But we spend a lot of time around bodybuilders and stuff like that, there is a lot of people who just have a routine that they just go to basically.
When you break it down, it’s not as hard as it sounds in terms of little things that … The first thing that always pops into my mind when I’m talking about that is say somebody likes nuts and they might eat almonds or one individual nut, if you literally switch that for mixed [00:07:00] nuts, you’ve already got six plus of your 30 that you’re aiming for.
Another little way of doing it without thinking about in terms of it’s 30+, but just in terms of how you think about your nutrition is you can get one nut and then the next time you go shopping, you can get a different one, and then the next time a different. Introduce some diversity that way. But then other things are like instead of just having one piece of fruit, you could have a fruit salad. Instead of just having a couple of vegetables, you could have mixed vegetables or you could have a salad bag. There’s seeds, there’s so many different options you can [00:07:30] go with. Even instead of one legume, you could have four bean mix.
There’s so many different options and it all adds up pretty quickly, and that obviously brings up the very obvious question that comes into line when you’re talking about does somebody who eats greater than 30 different plant-based foods per week versus somebody who eats 10 different plant-based foods per week, do they eat more plant matter to start off? Do they just eat more plants? Do they have more fiber? It’s probably a combination of things. Don’t take it too literally, don’t take it being like, oh, it’s only diversity that matters. It’s quantity and the diversity as well.
Leah Higl:
[00:08:00] Yeah, if you’re just having an almond a week, that’s probably not going to contribute so much to diversity. Quantity to a certain extent does matter.
Aidan Muir:
On that topic as well, in that diversity kind of line of thinking, if we are looking at also from the perspective of digestion and IBS symptoms and everything like that, diversity of foods can be a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, where it’s kind of like if you restrict down to a narrow range of foods that you’ll eat from, it might make it so that you [00:08:30] get more symptoms like IBS type symptoms when you re-introduce other foods that you don’t normally eat, because our gut bacteria is involved in the digestion of foods. If you aren’t having certain foods, the bacteria that normally would feed on those foods can die off a little bit, because it no longer has its food coming in, it no longer has that food coming in.
Our digestive enzymes that are normally used for digesting those foods or those food groups could also decrease a little bit, because there’s no need for them, it’s just the body adopting. [00:09:00] Somebody who has a very varied intake is more likely to be well-equipped to having varied foods coming in than somebody who only eats the same six foods or whatever over and over and over.
This is also something we see pretty commonly with carnivore and stuff like that, where people go carnivore, they feel really great, they reintroduce other foods, they don’t feel so great. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, where it’s like, “Well, now I’ve got to stay carnivore to feel good, basically.”
Leah Higl:
Yeah, 100%. Even comparing that back to fiber
If you consistently have low fiber intake, yeah, going from 10 grams a day to 30 to 40 grams a day is going feel like crap.
It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the wrong or the bad thing to do.
Leah Higl:
[00:10:00] So, the next part of this discussion is definitely going to be probiotics and prebiotics. So, we hear these words a lot when we’re talking about gut health and for good reason. So probiotics are the live microorganisms found in certain foods, which when consumed in adequate amounts are really beneficial to improving the gut microbiome and its diversity. On the flip side to that, a prebiotic is a type of fiber found in plant-based foods which promotes the growth of that [00:10:30] probiotic bacteria.
So, I like to think of it as probiotics are the healthy bacteria that we want in our gut, and prebiotic is kind of the food for those healthy gut bacteria. So, both are really important for both improving and maintaining good gut health.
So foods that contain probiotics include things like yogurt, so pretty much your fermented products. So yogurt, other fermented milk products like kefir, any kind of fermented vegetables. So my favorite’s definitely kimchi, I eat a jar [00:11:00] week, but things like sauerkraut, pickles, anything like that. Your fermented soy products are really great. So if you’re into things like tempeh or miso or natto, they’re really good options that are really probiotic rich.
In regards to prebiotics, that’s going to be predominantly all of your kind of diverse plant-based foods. Some are a little bit higher than others. For example, we have vegetables, things like green peas, snow peas, garlic and onion, [00:11:30] leaks that are particularly rich in prebiotics. Fruit-wise, bananas, dried fruit, watermelon, they’re all amazing. I definitely encourage lots of legumes and diversity in legumes, even your grains are great and all your nuts and seeds. So again, it kind of goes back to that diversity and quantity of plant-based foods and it kind of covers that to a certain degree.
Aidan Muir:
Yeah, and that’s also what’s interesting about FODMAPS. So we’ve got this data showing that if somebody goes on a low FODMAP diet for four weeks, their gut microbiome [00:12:00] changes pretty quickly. It’s also important to note that it actually changes that quickly. It’s not just this long-term thing that evolves slowly over time, it does happen relatively quickly. If you look through what are good prebiotic foods, a lot of them are cut out on the low-
Leah Higl:
They overlap.
Aidan Muir:
Yeah, they’re often cut out on the low FODMAP diet. That’s what’s hard, because we know it’s so effective for IBS, but it’s also like when we’re looking at “good gut health,” a lot of these things are also key for that as well. So makes it more complex, it’s almost like a contradiction to a certain degree.
[00:12:30] The other thing that I was going to touch on. Since we’re talking about probiotics, and I feel like we might have talked about this previously on other podcasts, but if somebody just wants good gut health, would we recommend probiotics, like supplementation?
Leah Higl:
I said it before, I don’t go out of my way to recommend them, but if a client’s like, “I want to try this,” then, yeah, okay, absolutely, you can kind of put it in there.
Aidan Muir:
Yeah, I’m not opposed to it. It’s the same kind of category. If somebody wants to do it, then it makes sense to me. I see it as something that, [00:13:00] depending on the strain, depending on what you use, because it is so diverse, but it can help certain symptoms and stuff like that. For somebody who is like, “I don’t get any symptoms, I feel great all the time, I just want to maintain good gut health,” or whatever, I probably don’t use it in that situation.
But the big thing is, as you kind of talked about, prebiotics are the food for the probiotics. If you take a probiotic supplement and then you don’t have this diverse range of prebiotics coming in, even if the probiotic worked, when you stop taking it, the bacteria that you introduce [00:13:30] into your system will die off, because it doesn’t have the environment created for it to feed on and everything like that.
Leah Higl:
Yeah, it would never be my frontline approach that’s for sure. It’s like tick all these boxes and then if you want to put a probiotic on top of that, what’s the harm?
Aidan Muir:
Yeah. So the next one, this is probably something I’m the least passionate about. I don’t really care about this one to be blatantly honest, but it is something that’s like we can’t really talk about gut health without also mentioning this. It is a key tip for if somebody wants to improve gut health, it makes sense, and that is resistant starch.
So resistant [00:14:00] starch, it kind of fits into that prebiotic fiber category, and it’s one of those ones that really clearly nourishes good bacteria in the large intestine. It is how the name kind of describes it, it is a type of fiber or starch that is resistant to digestion. When it ferments in the gut, it basically helps produce butyrate, and we know butyrate is really good for gut health. One of the stats I always love to chuck out is that people with [00:14:30] IBS on average have one fifth the amount of butyrate as those without IBS, so we know it’s linked with irritable bowel syndrome.
Then even on that low FODMAP topic, we know the low FODMAP diet actually reduces butyrate further or it takes out a lot of butyrate-producing foods. So that’s another thing where it’s like, okay, butyrate probably plays a pretty significant role in this. It’s not the be-all and end-all, it’s not a magic factor, but it is something that is something that’s such a common theme that it probably shouldn’t be overlooked. [00:15:00] Just like how I talk about how with vitamin D, 80% of people with IBS have low vitamin D. Doesn’t mean that low vitamin D causes it, but it’s such a common theme that it’s worth looking at.
So, where do we get resistant starch from? We do get it through food. On average people in Australia consume about three to nine grams of resistant starch per day. Whereas when we’re looking at it from a research perspective what’s most linked with positive health outcomes, we’re looking at 15 to 20 grams per day.
[00:15:30] In food, it is found in stuff like whole grains, legumes, nuts, starchy vegetables and some seeds. Obviously it’s hard for us to identify. You can’t just read a label and see, we just know that it’s in those things. If you increase your intake of those things, you’ll be increasing it further. But where most people who are really interested in that are getting these high amounts from are things like unripe bananas, so green bananas or green banana flour in cooking and stuff like that. The most common one that I often hear of is cooked and [00:16:00] cooled grains and starchy vegetables. For example, potato, rice, pasta, cooking it and then cooling it so you could have it as leftovers and stuff like that.
Leah Higl:
I think that’s the easiest one.
Aidan Muir:
Yeah, for sure. A lot of people incidentally do that. They’re not even doing it intentionally for resistant starch, it’s just a byproduct that comes alongside it.
Leah Higl:
So, the final part to this discussion is less about what you can add to your diet and more about what you can kind of moderate or minimize, and that is alcohol and meat products. [00:16:30] So from a meat perspective, I’d hate to be the vegan telling people to eat less meat, because you just don’t want to be that guy, but a high intake of cholesterol from animal products has been shown to decrease the levels of bifidobacteria, and we know that’s a particularly beneficial bacteria for gut health. So I’m not saying cut all meat out of your diet, but yeah, having a plant-based diet with moderate amounts of meat is going to generally be better for [00:17:00] gut health.
The same thing goes for alcohol and gut health. So we know that chronic alcohol consumption has also been shown to result in gut dysbiosis, so that imbalance of the gut microbiota. So, you don’t want to excessively consume alcohol intake if you’re really thinking about general health, but gut health as well. So you don’t need to completely cut alcohol or meat out of your diet, it’s really just about moderation.
Aidan Muir:
A quick one on that as well. We’ve [inaudible 00:17:28] if cholesterol is the driving [00:17:30] factor behind this, you could also make the argument that choosing leaner cuts of meat-
Leah Higl:
Oh, totally.
Aidan Muir:
Is also a massive step in the right direction too.
Leah Higl:
So, the microbiome is a complicated area of research. For the time being, we can be pretty positive that having a good volume and variety of plant-based foods is a really good idea. Incorporating prebiotic rich foods, probiotic rich foods, the resistant starch stuff, that is all going to be beneficial. [00:18:00] Limiting consumption of alcohol and potentially higher fat, high cholesterol meat and animal products, but then going back to the lifestyle factors as well. So reducing stress, really focusing on your mental health, exercising regularly and maintaining a healthy weight. So there is a lot that goes into it, but it kind of comes back to those basics.
Aidan Muir:
For sure. Super complex topic, but there’s a lot of easy wins to improve it as well. So that has been episode 35 of the Ideal Nutrition Podcast, [00:18:30] thank you to everybody who’s been listening.