Research says exercise improves your gut bacteria

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Post by Master, Doctor Mai Vien Phuong - Head of Department of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy - Department of Medical Examination & Internal Medicine - Vinmec Central Park International General Hospital

Researchers say they noticed changes in the gut microbiome after six weeks of exercise. Gut microbiota returned to normal after quitting exercise. If you need another reason to exercise, try this one. Exercise can change the composition of your gut microbiome.

There are trillions of microscopic organisms in the gut that play an important role in the overall health and function of the body. In a study from the University of Illinois, researchers found that exercising for just six weeks can have an impact on the microbiome. “These are the first studies to show that exercise improves gut microbiota independent of diet or other factors,” says Jeffrey Woods, PhD, professor of pharmacokinetics and health. public health at the University of Illinois , who studied with former graduate student Jacob. Allen, now a postdoctoral researcher at National Children's Hospital in Ohio.

1. What Researchers Discovered

Woods and Allen have conducted studies on both rats and humans. In the human study, researchers recruited 18 lean adults and 14 sedentary obese adults. They started by sampling the gut microbiota of people who participated in an exercise program that included 30 to 60 minutes of cardiovascular exercise three times a week for six weeks. At the end of six weeks of exercise, the researchers again sampled the participants' gut microbiota. They found that the microorganisms had changed. Some participants experienced an increase in some microorganisms and others a decrease.
Many people have an increase in the gut bacteria that support the production of short-chain fatty acids. These fatty acids reduce the risk of inflammatory diseases as well as type 2 diabetes, obesity and heart disease. After an initial period of six weeks, the participants then returned to six weeks of their normal sedentary lifestyle. This is considered a way to create digestive aid exercises.

2. The case of regular exercise

When the researchers resampled the participants' microbiomes at the end of this sedentary period, they found the microbiomes returned to pre-exercise levels. This suggests that exercise's impact on the microbiome over a period of just six weeks may be fleeting, Woods said.
He told Healthline: “This tells us that exercise needs to be done regularly and that stopping exercise will cause the phenomenon to reverse.
Woods said this calls for further research on exercise over a longer period of time. "We need to understand whether longer periods of exercise cause larger changes." Emeran Mayer, a gastroenterologist at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and author of the mind-gut connection, says it's only recently that science understands the importance of the sugar microbiome. gut for overall health. “They were completely ignored until about 10 years ago. Now, interest in this area is exploding,” he told Healthline. “They are very important to every aspect of health, especially metabolic health. They have a very important role in most of our organ functions and... play an important role in a number of diseases such as obesity, depression and autism spectrum disorder,” he said. Given that the microbiome in the Illinois study changed only around the time of exercise, then returned to normal, Mayer said it is difficult to determine the extent to which exercise benefits the gut specifically. .

3. Lifestyle is also important

For people experiencing conditions like irritable bowel syndrome or inflammatory bowel disease, Mayer says that lifestyle factors are often a good place to start in improving quality of life and boosting digestion. “For my own patients, I always recommend lifestyle changes. Diet, exercise, meditation, stress management. This is always part of any form of treatment that I give to patients I have with digestive issues,” he says. Dr. Geoffrey Preidis is a member of the scientific advisory board for the Center for Gut Microbiology Research and Education of the American Gastroenterology Association. He said the University of Illinois study raises some important questions about changing the microbiome.
“These studies add important knowledge about the effect of body composition on the microbial response to exercise, and about the transient nature of this response when a Exercise mode is cancelled. An important question that remains unanswered is whether these microbiome changes confer some of the long-term benefits of exercise on human health,” he told Healthline.
Factors such as diet and antibiotic use can affect the microbiome. But there are many other factors that can influence the microbiome. “Age, genetics, body composition, medications, presence of disease, changes in diet, and stress (such as lack of sleep),” says Preidis.

4. Microbial sensitivity

Although there are still many questions surrounding the effects of exercise on the body and gut or the beneficial bacteria in the gut, changes in the body caused by exercise may also be a factor. change the microbiome.
“Intestinal microorganisms are highly responsive to their gut environment, sensing and integrating signals from both the human host and the outside world. Even small changes can make microbial populations expand or certain microbial genes become active. Although our understanding of how exercise affects the body is still incomplete, several factors can trigger a response from the gut microbiome including changes in blood flow, circulating hormones and bowel movements,” he says.
As for whether this study should be a reason to exercise, Mayer said it's important to remember that the long-term effects of exercise on the gut have yet to be established. “Exercisers don't have a permanent microbiome that's different from when they weren't exercising, just when they were exercising. It's like when you're on probiotics, you have some beneficial changes, but 48 hours after stopping probiotics, you don't see that effect anymore,” he says. But Mayer says exercise is a good idea regardless of whether it alters your microbiome.
“If you want to pick one thing you can do to boost your health, it could be exercise, followed by diet. For optimal health, overall wellness, overall resilience, the answer is absolutely yes, daily exercise is the key component of that,” he says.

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