How Can You Keep Your Gut Health – Your Microbiome Healthy?

It has also changed drastically in developing countries [and the] United States, specifically in early childhood when babies develop their lifelong patterns of immunity and metabolism. Over the last century, our microbiome has been depleting, losing some of the ancestral microbes, and [I have hypothesized] that it is leading to major diseases and epidemics such as obesity, asthma, food allergies, diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, and cancer.

Q: What is threatening the microbiome, causing it to change so much?

A: As a whole, the public will try anything to attain and maintain a healthy lifestyle, but some modern-day practices intended to improve health and medicine are over-used and may actually be doing more harm than good. These threats include the very widespread over-usage of antibiotics, C-sections, use of baby formula over breast milk, and antibacterial products.

Antibiotics are the number one threat to our microbiome, but it’s complex because while they are a pillar of modern life. Almost all children are receiving multiple courses in the first few years of life. Every time a child takes a dose of an antibiotic, doctors need to account for the cost-benefit of the antibiotics and how it may be increasing the risk of other diseases.

We need to educate medical professionals to understand that every prescription has a cost and to question whether it is absolutely necessary. Infants’ microbes are threatened when they are delivered via C-section or given formula as opposed to breast milk.

Every generation hands over their microbiome to the next as the baby passes through the birth canal, but babies born through C-section lack that transfer. At some point early in life, babies will then be given their first course of antibiotics. It takes a while for the microbiome of babies born by C-section to normalize and in that time when the brain and immune system develops, they become more at risk for developing obesity, celiac disease, and juvenile diabetes.

Next, babies fed formula receive important nutrients such as calories and calcium, but they’re missing the micronutrients that breast milk has evolved to contain. As a result, the microbiome is altered in ways that could increase the later risk of obesity, asthma, and allergies.

The last major threat is the use of antibacterials, whether it be soaps or hand gels, as they get rid of the “good” germs as well as the “bad.” We need good germs to help our bodies defend against the bad, but with antibacterials, we are washing everything away.

Q: What can people do to maintain the health and influence of their microbiome?

A: Each person, especially parents of young children, should consider the benefits and risks associated with the use of antibiotics, C-sections, baby formula, and antibacterials, and question whether they are completely necessary. For example, question your doctor if you are prescribed an antibiotic. The illness may resolve itself just as well on its own without it.

Sometimes, C-sections and formula feeding are medically necessary, but if there is a choice, women should opt for vaginal delivery and feeding their infant with breast milk.

Lastly, rather than buying antibacterial soaps, consider washing with plain soap and water instead. Any benefits from antibacterial soaps have not been proven, despite their widespread marketing.

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This article was first published by Rutgers University. Republished via Futurity.org under Creative Commons License 4.0.