Effects of Exercise on Gut Microbiome
Imagine a busy city on a weekday morning filled with traffic and sidewalks flooded with people rushing to get to work. Now, picture this scenario on a microscopic level, inside the human body where trillions of microorganisms reside – collectively known as the gut microbiome.
Each person has an entirely unique microbiota network originally determined by one’s DNA. A person is first exposed to microorganisms as an infant, during delivery in the birth canal and through the mother’s breast milk.
Why Is It Important to Understand the Gut?
Your gut is your gastrointestinal system which includes your stomach, intestines, and colon. It digests and absorbs nutrients from food and excretes waste. Having a balanced ratio of good and bad bacteria is essential for good gut health. The gut microbiome is the foundation of overall health. Numerous studies and ongoing research have indicated a strong correlation between gut health and brain function, immune system, irritable bowel disease, cardiovascular disease, obesity, type 2 diabetes, mental health, autoimmune diseases, sleep and mood, and even cancer.
Did you know? The human gut microbiome is the largest endocrine organ, secreting more than 30 gut hormones that regulate energy and metabolic homeostasis.
Impacts of a Sedentary Lifestyle
For optimal health benefits, current guidelines encourage adults to move more and sit less throughout the day. They recommend at least 150 to 300 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity per week in addition to two or more days of muscle-strengthening activities per week. Recent estimates indicate that only a quarter of adults meet these exercise recommendations, and people are sitting more often due to factors like sedentary office work and increased screen time.
TIP: To be healthy, we need to move more and sit less. For instance, if you spend an hour doing high-intensity interval training (HIIT) but then sit for the rest of the day, you are still engaging in sedentary behavior. Sedentary behavior is directly linked to an elevated risk of chronic diseases and a higher rate of all-cause mortality compared to increased levels of physical activity.
Understanding the Response of Gut Microbiome to Exercise
Exercise can enrich the diversity of the microflora, improve the Bacteroidetes-Firmicutes ratio, potentially reduce weight, obesity-associated pathologies, and gastrointestinal disorders, and stimulate the proliferation of beneficial bacteria, resulting in a reduction in obesity and metabolic diseases. Obesity is linked to lower diversity and richness of the intestinal microbiota, with a lower ratio of beneficial gut bacteria. The gut microbiota plays a crucial role in regulating body weight. Lifestyle changes, such as diet and exercise, can help reduce obesity and improve the quality of the microbiota.
The mechanism could be that exercise reduces intestinal transit and evacuation time, influencing the gut-brain axis and increasing SCFA-producing commensal bacteria.
What Are SCFAs?
Short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) are produced in the colon by bacterial fermentation of dietary fibers and resistant starch. They act as a source of energy for the cells lining the colon.
How Does Physical Activity Impact the Gut Microbiome and Overall Intestinal Health?
Moderate to vigorous-intensity exercise training can improve insulin sensitivity and reduce inflammation, leading to positive changes in gut microbiota profiles. Regular exercise also increases the production of SCFAs, which can improve insulin sensitivity and balance blood sugar levels.
This increase in SCFA-producing bacteria may have beneficial effects like influencing vagus nerve activation, modulation of neurotransmitter metabolism, reduction of intestinal permeability and systemic inflammation, and maintaining the integrity of the blood-brain barrier. Peak oxygen uptake (VO2peak) is the gold standard to measure cardiorespiratory fitness. Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) is correlated with increased gut microbial diversity. Fit individuals have more beneficial gut bacteria that produce butyrate, which is linked to good digestive health. Exercise can be a form of therapy to treat diseases caused by an imbalance of gut bacteria.
Maintaining a diverse range of gut bacteria is important for good health, especially in older people. A reduction in biodiversity has been linked to inflammation caused by obesity and gastrointestinal diseases (IBD and IBS). Exercising to increase gut bacteria diversity can help prevent these conditions.
Gut Microbiome and Chronic Diseases
Another fascinating study reveals that Parkinson’s disease (PD), a disorder of the central nervous system that affects movement, can be influenced by a bidirectional communication system called the gut-brain axis. The progression of the disease is significantly affected by gut dysbiosis, i.e., an increase in bad gut bacteria. Exercise has been shown to address dysbiosis in other medical conditions apart from PD. Exercise is now considered a crucial therapeutic strategy for enhancing motor and cognitive function in PD patients.
The Downside of Excessive Exercise
As we study the benefits of exercise on the gut microbiome, it is also important to note that acute vigorous high-intensity exercise or endurance training can result in an increase in intestinal lining damage and permeability.
Conclusion
Recent studies have specifically investigated the gut microbiome’s response to exercise in various populations, from sedentary adults to competitive athletes. Incorporating regular physical activity from low to high intensities can benefit a patient’s gut and overall health. Exercise programs that consider the gut microbiome response are among those functional medicine strategies that may be appropriate for a patient’s treatment plan. Not only can they be fun for the patient, but they can also help achieve sustainable health improvements and positive lifestyle changes.
Thus, exercise can be used to maintain the balance of the microflora or rebalance eventual dysbiosis, leading to improved health status. However, more research is needed to fully understand how exercise affects the composition and functions of microflora and its related effects.
For more insights and comprehensive health guides, visit Nourish Fit.
References:
- Exercise Enriches Microflora
- Erlandson KM, Liu J, Johnson R, et al. An exercise intervention alters stool microbiota and metabolites among older, sedentary adults. Ther Adv Infect Dis. 2021;8:20499361211027067. doi:1177/20499361211027067
- Exercise and Gut Microbiome
- Exercise and SCFA Production
- Exercise and Microbiome Health
Truly appreciate your well-written posts. I have certainly picked up valuable insights from your page. Here is mine Webemail24 about Professional Moving Services. Feel free to visit soon.