Scientific evidence demonstrated that it is possible to track up to 90% of illnesses and conditions back to the microbiota. So if you want to know how to boost gut fitness spontaneously, here's an excellent lecture!
Around 80 to 90 percent of our immune response is found in our stomach. It is important to map disorders such as autoimmunity, cancer, asthma, diabetes and more back to our digestive system.
PORT TALBOT, UNITED KINGDOM - JANUARY 23: Two women walk in the rain in Port Talbot on January 23 2008 in Wales, United Kingdom. Experts fear that the recent gloomy and wet weather, which has charactised both the winter and summer, could cause a increase in depression and some people may be suffering the effects of low levels of vitamin D - produced naturally in the body in sunlight. The grey and overcast weather may be partly to blame for a significant increase in calls to the volunteer helplines, such as the Samaritans, who reported calls were up 24 percent from this time in 2007.
Microbiome, What Is It?
Our gut is home to a diverse population of more than 100 trillion microbial cells that impact human physiology, metabolism, diet, and immune function. In the human body, this population of excellent and poor bacteria will weigh up to 4 pounds.
Science also calls the microbiome a "new organ." Like a fingerprint, everyone's microbiome is distinctive. Stress, environmental shifts, and dietary behaviors also impair the fragile equilibrium.
Gastrointestinal diseases such as inflammatory bowel disorder and obesity have been correlated with dysfunction of the gastrointestinal microbiota.
Vitamin D's Connection to Gut
Researchers and collaborators at the University of California San Diego recently found in older men that the production of a person's gut microbiota is related to their amounts of active vitamin D, a nutrient essential for bone health and immunity.
The paper, released in Nature Communications on November 26, 2020, also disclosed a new definition of vitamin D.
Vitamin D can take many different types, but only one, an inactive precursor that the body can store, is detectable by regular blood tests. The body must metabolize the precursor into an active state to allow use of vitamin D.
"We were surprised to find that microbiome diversity -- the variety of bacteria types in a person's gut -- was closely associated with active vitamin D, but not the precursor form," said senior author Deborah Kado, MD, director of the Osteoporosis Clinic at UC San Diego Health. He said better gut microbiome diversity is thought to be associated with better health in general.
Poor Vitamin D Could Mean Health Complications
Several reports have also shown that individuals with low amounts of vitamin D are at greater risk for a severe case of COVID-19, tumors, cardiac failure, and other diseases. Yet, of more than 25,000 people, the most significant randomized research study to date concluded that consuming vitamin D supplementation had little effects on health results, including cardiac failure, cancer, or even bone health.
The men in the sample are subject to varying sunshine levels, a source of vitamin D, and they reside in various parts of the U.S. Men living in San Diego, California, had the most heat, as predicted. They had the most precursor type of vitamin D as well.
But surprisingly, the team noticed no connection between where men resided and their successful vitamin D hormone levels.
Kado said it doesn't matter how much vitamin D you get through sunlight or supplementation, nor how much your body can store. "It matters how well your body is able to metabolize that into active vitamin D," he said.
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