Home Biome | Feeding the Gut Biosphere
Home Biome | Feeding the Gut Biosphere
“We are with you sire; to the very end.”
This is not medical or health advice. Consult a professional. Some details have been stylised.
Ah, the human body, is there anything more glorious?
You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like.
We’re going on a journey today; inside the human body, so step under this special shrinking ray, strap yourself in and in 3…2….1…
Wait! Our team of scientists has just informed me we don’t have the budget to shrink you, I’m so sorry – also they mumbled something about ‘shrinking rays not existing’ but I digress. Hmm, lets instead use the next best thing available to us, our…
Like all those episodes where they go into the human body
Imagine we’ve shrunk you down to size and launched you into your best friend’s mouth. You fly at breakneck speeds into the dark gaping void and straight down their gullet. As you enter freefall, the darkness blinds you. Terror grips you and you begin to lose hope as you feel the oesephagus ending. Suddenly you hear high-tech whirring and the body suit we gave you (we had budget for it, you’re welcome) springs to life. It cushions your fall as you land into the stomach. Stomach juices are flowing everywhere and you can feel their squelching and oozing from every orifice. You look around adjusting your eyes and are surprised to see the stomach in all its glory.
A giant cavern filled with light – we’ve had expeditions to your best friends stomach before and strung some bulbs up, you’re welcome – and multitudes of bacteria colonising every available space. Some are good. Some are bad. It’s nothing like the simple diagrams from high school bio class.
You see powerful stomach enzymes doing their job and the entire system working in tandem as the largest processing facility works its magic.
As you stand there gawking at the magnificent site, you become painfully aware of a single truth. You are what you eat.
If this massive processing facility is churning out everything that falls into it for fuel for the entire body then every cell in your body is made up of that which you eat.
Every organ, every tissue, every nerve, every cell in your body is created by whatever is processed here. It’s condition, upkeep and maintenance are all a reflection of whatever food finds its way down here.
Terror grips you as you frantically look around the stomach until you see it. A giant pile of dissolving black. It’s the chocolate cake your friend ate a while ago. You screech in horror realising it’s too late and that there is nothing you can do to remove this black mound. Soon, the cells in their body will be produced, repaired and energised by it’s chocolatey goodness.
The cells look at you in anger because they know there is little nutritional value to be found in this cake. They know you bought it for your friend. They ask you….
CHOCOLATE!?!?!?!!
Chocolate Cake. Delectable to the taste as it dances across the tongue but a missile of doom in your stomach.
Before you know it, the entire stomach is thrown into chaos:
Streptococcus bacteria feeds off the choc-choc and multiples in the millions (unhealthy past a certain point)
Healhy E.coli finds little to eat and is out competed by the other unhealthy colonies. It shrinks in size
Your body breaks down the cake and uses it to produce & upkeep cells all over the body. They come out weak. Deformed. Stunted.
Clearly exaggerated but the gut biome is its own living ecosystem and a key processing facility for everything that is produced in your body. Feeding it a modern diet based off processed commercial foods, high sugar items and certain carbs and starchy foods in the pursuit of a good taste or calorie highs deprives this ecosystem of the balanced nutrients it needs. It’s a huge problem as these low-quality foods produce the cells that make up you as a person. A lifetime of this can lead to illnesses, conditions, poor skin, mental fog and reduced physical manoeuvrability to name a few issues.
You wouldn’t load an éclair into a cannon and expect it to fire correctly.
So feed your gut biome what it actually needs so that it can help your body regulate moods, increase concentration and promote healthy fitness levels.
I don’t want to issue any dietary advice so the generic ‘drink water, cut processed foods, eat balanced healthy foods’ will have to suffice. I strongly encourage you to conduct research, consult specialists and experiment with various healthy foods that can help promote a healthy gut biome.
You depart your friend’s stomach and expand back to normal size. Wiser.
Modern Medicine
It must be mentioned alongside the gut biome that both modern medicine and the human body is an incredibly powerful thing. The problems medicine can solve and the power that your body has to heal itself and correct issues is astounding. Despite this there is a dark side to medicine, probably not malicious but dark nonetheless.
See, some portions of modern medicine work strongly with short term symptom based solutions in mind. You feel depressed? Here’s an antidepressant. Eczema? Here’s a steroid cream. Losing hair? Slap some Finasteride on.
Appropriate where needed but devastating when not. Many medications when taken consistently don’t treat the underlying condition and merely suppress its symptoms. Then when your body builds resistance to the initial medication, you are often prescribed a stronger version, then a stronger version until nothing works and your body ends up like this.
I don’t know enough to start blaming practitioners in the field who prescribe medications willy-nilly, whether it’s good intentions gone wrong, enticing commissions from pharmaceutical companies, or blatant indifference to actually solving a patients problem – the end result is we receive a very regimented diagnosis and unsustainable treatment plan to many of the health problems we see in the modern world. It especially gets worrying when you see modern diets and gut biome overlooked while hard medications are prescribed en masse.
Like I said, the human body and gut biome are marvellous powerhouses where many human problems and solutions can be found, there is still an important place for modern medicine in solving our problems – it just can’t be to the exclusion of creating a healthy gut biosphere through healthy eating habits.
The dark side of prescription
A fighting chance
Let’s back up for a second and outline why developing healthy eating habits and managing a balanced gut biome is important beyond the generic ‘it’s healthy for you’ spiel.
Your body is yours. That’s it. It’s your little fighting force made of billions if not trillions of cells with one sole purpose: to serve YOU. It owes no allegiance to your spouse, your neighbour, your parents, your boss or your favourite celebrity whose feet you’re perhaps far too willing to throw yourself at. These boys are here for you and you alone. They’re not shared, they don’t have a split purpose, they don’t concern themselves with the functioning of another person. Just you. There are always rogue cells but for the most part your body behaves.
How special is that?
An entire mini-civilisation with its own industry & production (mitochondria), transport (blood cells), defence (white cells), communications (nerve cells), research and development (lymphocytes) and recreation (need I elaborate?). Ready to throw life and limb to keep you punching so you can focus on enjoying life.
They are totally under your command.
We owe it to the little guys to lead them effectively and treat them respectfully.
Serizawa proudly watches your recent intake of vegetables take on the fearsome chocolate cake