Healing the Gut with Dr. Zach Bush

Winter Wellness Reboot / Part 2 - HEALING THE GUT

THE MICROBIOME by DR. ZACH BUSH

This week and last week we've been working on healing our gut. However, in order to do that properly, we need to understand what that all means, why its so important, and how it affects our health.

Video Link Here of MP3 recording:

Part 1 -

Part 2 -

We humans are mostly microbes, over 100 trillion of them. Microbes outnumber our human cells ten to one with the majority living in our gut - particularly in the large intestine.

The microbiome is the genetic material of all the microbes (bacteria, fungi, protozoa and viruses) - that live on and inside the human body. The number of genes in all the microbes in one person’s microbiome is 200 times the number of genes in the human genome. The microbiome may weigh as much as five pounds.

The bacteria in the microbiome help digest our food, regulate our immune system, protect against other bacteria that cause disease, and produce vitamins. Vitamins include the B vitamins B12, thiamine and riboflavin, and Vitamin K (which is needed for blood coagulation.)

What does the microbiome have to do with health? The microbiome is essential for human development, immunity and nutrition. The bacteria living in and on us are not invaders but beneficial colonizers.

Autoimmune diseases such as diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis, and fibromyalgia are associated with dysfunction in the microbiome. Disease-causing microbes accumulate over time, changing gene activity and metabolic processes and resulting in an abnormal immune response against substances and tissues normally present in the body. Autoimmune diseases appear to be passed in families not by DNA inheritance but by inheriting the family’s microbiome.

- The gut microbiome is different between obese and lean twins. Obese twins have a lower diversity of bacteria, and higher levels of enzymes, meaning the obese twins are more efficient at digesting food and harvesting calories. Obesity has also been associated with a poor combination of microbes in the gut.

- Type I diabetes is an autoimmune disease associated with a less diverse gut microbiome. In animal studies, bacteria play a role in developing diabetes.

- Dust from homes with dogs may reduce the immune response to allergens and other asthma triggers by changing the composition of the gut microbiome. Infants who live in homes with dogs have been found to be less likely to develop childhood allergies.

- Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT or fecal transplantation) is a clinical procedure that restores healthy bacteria in the colon by introducing stool by colonoscopy or enema from a healthy human donor. Potentially fatal Clostridium difficile infections (CDI) have been cured using FMT to restore healthy gut microbiota. FMT is also used to treat colitis, constipation, and irritable bowel syndrome.

A person’s microbiome may influence their susceptibility to infectious diseases and contribute to chronic illnesses of the gastrointestinal system like Crohn’s disease and irritable bowel syndrome. Some collections of microbes determine how a person responds to a drug treatment. Also, the microbiome of the mother may affect the health of her children.

Researchers mapping the human microbiome are discovering previously uncharted species and genes. Genetic studies that measure the relative abundance of different species in the human microbiome have linked various combinations of microbe species to certain human health conditions.

A more complete understanding of the diversity of microbes in the human microbiome could lead to new therapies, perhaps treating a bacterial infection caused by a “bad” bacteria by growing more “good” bacteria.

The HMP (Human Microbiome Project) serves as a roadmap for discovering the role of the microbiome in health, nutrition, immunity, and disease.

There is still MUCH to be discovered pertaining to gut health and the microbiome; this is just the tip of the iceberg! Understanding the microbiome could be the key to unlocking cures.

Balancing YOUR microbiome (consequently balancing your biochemistry) and healing your gut can be the magic bullet to helping you get back on the road to health!!

Love and Light, Happy Healing

God Bless!

Resources:

The NIH Human Microbiome Project (NHGRI): http://www.hmpdacc.org and http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2792171

Human Genome 10th Anniversary: Digging Deep into the Microbiome: https://www.sciencemag.org/ content/331/6020/1008.summary

The Microbiome and Autoimmune Disease: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23370376

Dust in homes with dogs may protect against allergies and asthma: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ pubmed/24344318

Family Ties: Taking on the intricacies of the gut microbiome, UW Medicine Center for Intestinal Microbiome Research: http://depts.washington.edu/…/…/10/report-to-donors-2012-201