Understanding your gut with 'Try This'

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0:20Cristina Quinn:Hey there, it's Ella Hay.

0:22Trisha Pasricha:I hope you're having a great Fourth of July. We have something special for you today.

0:27Cristina Quinn:So you might be going to cookouts and eating a lot today.

0:31Trisha Pasricha:I know I am. So we decided to bring you a show about the gut. You know, that thing that processes all that food that we're eating. This episode comes to us from another Washington Post podcast.

0:46Cristina Quinn:It's called Try This. Try This is a series of short audio courses. It's hosted by my colleague, Christina Quinn.

0:54Trisha Pasricha:Christina is hilarious, and she also loves helping people learn how to improve their lives. The latest Try This course is all about the gut and the gut microbiome. The whole series is both fascinating and practical. On this first episode of the course, Christina talks to a gastroenterologist. They break down what is the gut microbiome and how does it influence everything from digestion to disease. And after you listen, be sure to follow Try This in your podcast app. All right, here's the show.

1:35Trisha Pasricha:Hey, welcome to Try This from The Washington Post. Try This is a series of audio courses to help you take on common challenges and learn something new without having to make a big time commitment. I'm Christina Quinn, and I'll be learning with you per usual. In this course, we're going to loosen our belts and unpack the mysteries of gut health, specifically the gut microbiome, because at the end of the day, what you put inside your body affects everything else. If you're new here, welcome. This course will have three classes, aka three episodes. So in this first episode, we're going to learn what the microbiome is exactly and find out what all those microbes are really up to.

2:17Trisha Pasricha:In the second episode, we'll find out what happens to your gut microbiome when you start eating certain kinds of food. And in our third and final episode, we're going to give you practical ways to make some changes without causing major upheaval to your life and your wallet. And we'll explain why you don't really need to take that probiotic. Okay, class is in session. Let's try this.

2:44Trisha Pasricha:When I have questions about anything having to do with digestion, I reach out to my favorite intestinal expert, Dr. Tricia Pasricha.

2:52Cristina Quinn:I'm an instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. My second title would be I'm a gastroenterologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Do you want me to go get a white coat? I've got like, I've got all kinds of props. I have a stethoscope, a white coat. I can go get it. No, no, I believe you. I know you're a real doctor.

3:07Trisha Pasricha:Dr. Pasricha also has a third title. She's a columnist here at the Washington Post. Her column is called Ask a Doctor. Hey, thanks for meeting with me.

3:17Cristina Quinn:Yeah, I'm delighted. You picked one of my favorite topics. I love everything about the gut, but the microbiome is like especially exciting. What is it specifically that excites you? I think it's so misunderstood. And yet the data is really thrilling and it gives me a lot of hope for the future. And there's a lot of emerging research because there's still a lot that we don't know, right? There's a lot that we don't know. I mean, people have known about the bacteria that live in our bodies for decades and decades, like dating back to the early 1900s and even late 1800s. But in a way, I think the part of it that's new is really understanding the role it plays in our disease and how we might manipulate it towards health.

3:52Cristina Quinn:That part is still newer and still emerging.

3:57Trisha Pasricha:What exactly is the gut microbiome? Where is it? What's going on there?

4:01Cristina Quinn:The gut microbiome, that is what people have estimated to be around the order of about 100 trillion different microbes that live in our guts. Our guts are not unique in our bodies in that they have their microbiome. Our skin has a microbiome. Our mouths have a microbiome. But our gut microbiome seems to really play an important role in our health and in disease. And we're still kind of trying to figure out what those connections are.

4:28Trisha Pasricha:Well, I think when people think the gut, they just think of like their abs. In my case, super, super taut abs. Same. So, so toit. No, but the gut is actually, it's not just that.

4:43Cristina Quinn:The gut, I think, is an all-encompassing term. We're usually talking about the colon, although bacteria live in the small intestine as well. And we're usually not talking about the stomach, though, specifically. Very few bacteria can survive in the acidic environment of the stomach. The stomach is the beginning of digestion, you know, and that's where the food starts to become broken down into tiny particles that then pass into the small intestine. And so by the time food has reached the colon, you know, and it has transitioned to what we might call poop, you really derive all of the nutrients that you want out of it.

5:15Cristina Quinn:because the small intestine's job, which is in between the stomach and the large intestine or the colon, is to really absorb all of the nutrients and all of the good aspects of whatever you've eaten into the bloodstream and where it could be processed and used by the rest of your body. So it's really the waste that makes it to your large colon. But if you think about it, waste means like your body, the rest of your body, or other organs don't have a need for it. But what could make it there is fiber. Fiber is not digested. It's not broken down. It's not absorbed by the body, But it's a wonderful thing.

5:46Trisha Pasricha:And it's a wonderful thing that microbes live in our colon. They love fiber. As the old saying goes, one man's waste is another microbe's pleasure feast.

5:58Cristina Quinn:And then when they take that fiber in, you know, they produce these beneficial metabolites, one of which could be short-chain fatty acids or other things.

6:07Trisha Pasricha:Short-chain fatty acids are produced when gut bacteria ferment fiber in your colon, giving life to the cells that line the inside. They're part of a bigger picture that Dr. Prastricha spells out for us after the break.

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7:33Cristina Quinn:Okay, so when we think about the microbiome, I think it's helpful to think about it maybe in three different parts. So there's these things called prebiotics, then there's maybe probiotics, and then there's these postbiotics.

7:48Trisha Pasricha:Let's start with prebiotics, which is non-digestible food. Fiber is a prebiotic, and we should be eating about 25 to 30 grams of fiber a day. But most of us aren't.

8:00Cristina Quinn:All of us Americans, we're not getting enough fiber in our diet. So just accept that. Whatever way you can increase the amount of fiber in your diet, you'll be better off. But if you really want to take it to the next level, what you want is the diversity in your diet.

8:14Trisha Pasricha:That means different kinds of fiber sources you would find in veggies, fruits, whole grains and nuts. The microbes in your gut ferment that fiber, which fosters a super happy and diverse universe of bacteria.

8:27Cristina Quinn:So all of these things contribute to the bacteria themselves and what kind of the composition, what strains and species these different bacteria are.

8:36Trisha Pasricha:Probiotics are the so-called good bacteria that we associate with eating certain foods.

8:41Cristina Quinn:If we're just talking about ingesting foods that we know contain beneficial bacteria, so that would be like fermented foods, kimchi, sauerkraut, active cultures like in Greek yogurt, nobody's ever going to say that that's a bad idea. And those things are known to improve the kind of overall composition of the microbiome, and they're associated with decreased rates of gut symptoms.

9:03Trisha Pasricha:But here's the thing. Dr. Prasritcha says the ideal form of a probiotic is the kind our body makes itself. And the way your body does that is by making certain dietary choices. This goes back again to eating good sources of fiber. OK, so now let's dig into postbiotics. This is a lesser known word, but it's just as important.

9:26Cristina Quinn:That's the other fancy word for what is it that the bacteria are producing? what comes after that. And one of those things are short-chain fatty acids. Short-chain fatty acids like butyrate, you may have heard of, are these beneficial molecules that have an important role in our bodies. They can kind of help dampen inflammation. They're associated with reduced risk of all kinds of diseases, including cardiovascular diseases. And the kinds of postbiotics that your microbiome produces, they're different person to person. And they ultimately can be traced back oftentimes to what you're feeding that microbiome in the first place.

10:02Trisha Pasricha:So the more fiber you eat, and we're talking veggies, whole grains, and the microbes are just like, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, I'm so happy.

10:11Cristina Quinn:They love it. It's a buffet for them. And the fiber, you know, just because it's not absorbed doesn't mean it's not benefiting you sort of personally earlier on in the process, right? Because fiber, it takes longer to digest. So some of the benefits you feel even before it hits the colon is that you might feel full longer. Like you'll feel like you've had a more satisfied meal as opposed to ultra processed foods that have this quick release of sugar. They're very easily broken down by the stomach. And then you're hungry again, 15 minutes later. Right. Okay. So all the action really happens in the intestines.

10:44Trisha Pasricha:There's a lot of mileage in there, pun intended.

10:47Cristina Quinn:There is. It's long, it's windy. The amount of time it takes for your food to become poop, to exit the body is different from the, from me, it's different from the other people who might be watching this. Everyone takes a little bit of a different length of time, but, but it can be on the order of days. And so it takes a long time to get absorbed first by the small intestine, all the nutrients, but then, you know, we have a little bit more control in when we poop. And so if we, for whatever reason, have decided like, we can't afford to poop for the next five hours, we're in this middle of this podcast, we've got to focus.

11:20Cristina Quinn:You could, you could, you could control that you could hold it in. And that entire time, whatever you've decided to not excrete, your microbiome continues to feed off of. It sits there and your microbiome is loving it. And it's eating that fiber, whatever else you've given it to chew on, and producing more and more short-chain fatty acids. It's a really nice visual. Yeah. And like right before lunch, it's perfect. That's great.

11:46Trisha Pasricha:So now that we've established that we are nothing more than mortal hosts to trillions of microbes, We're going to see what we can do to make our tiny overlords thrive in a world that is stacked against us. But first, recap time. We humanoid bipeds are hosts to trillions of microbes that live in our gut, aka our intestines, namely our colon. That's where the party really is. And as Dr. Pastritsch explained, it's helpful to think about the gut microbiome in three different parts. Prebiotics, which is fiber that feeds the microbes and keeps them happy. Nom, nom, nom. Then there's probiotics, which is beneficial bacteria from certain kinds of food with live cultures, like yogurt and kimchi.