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How Aphrodisiacs can Help Fight Disease

Diet, Digestive Health, Women’s Health / By @drHoberman

There has been a lot of recent interest among food researchers investigating the health benefits of resveratrol, an antioxidant found naturally in red wine, dark chocolate, peanuts and some berries.

As we’ve talked about previously in this space, good gut health is one of the variables that allows resveratrol-rich foods like dark chocolate and red wine to offer some pretty nifty advantages, like sharpening your brain.

Consuming resveratrol-rich foods may also be responsible for these perks by making changes to your gut health, according to a pair of reports related to protecting your cardiovascular system from disease.

Resveratrol vs. diabetes

A fascination about the benefits of resveratrol piqued the curiosity of Dr. Jason Dyck, who has spent years studying this antioxidant at the University of Alberta.

Previous studies found resveratrol benefited the health of diabetic patients by lowering their blood sugar levels, but scientists didn’t understand how because resveratrol levels circulating throughout the human bloodstream are so low.

That is, until Dyck and his research team examined how resveratrol affected the gut microbiomes of mice in a study appearing in the medical journal, Diabetes.

In step one, feeding obese mice resveratrol for six weeks was enough to change the makeup of their tiny microbiomes and improve their tolerance to glucose.

The positive results from stage two of their study – giving new healthy mice fecal transplants from that previous group of diabetic mice – were far more dramatic, rapid and impressive than feeding them resveratrol alone.

“We performed fecal transplants in pre-diabetic obese mice and within two weeks their blood sugar levels were almost back to normal,” says Dr. Dyck, according to a press release.

After some deliberation, scientists concluded this gut health change may be the result of one or a group of metabolites that could be triggering healthy changes in blood sugar levels.

“It’s going to take a herculean effort to find what that molecule is,” says Dr. Dyck. “Maybe it’s one, maybe it’s a combination of four or five, or maybe even a hundred. We don’t know, but we intend to find out.”

Resveratrol vs. heart disease

Resveratrol may also play an important role in reducing the production of TMAO (trimethylamine N-oxide), an natural gut byproduct that promotes heart disease by triggering the accumulation of plaque in the arteries by gut flora, according to a report appearing in mBio.

A group of Chinese researchers fed mice bred to have an elevated risk of developing atherosclerosis food with or without resveratrol for 30 days. Then, the mice were fed TMA (trimethylamine) or choline to trigger any unhealthy reactions.

Resveratrol had a very similar calming effect, not only on TMAO levels, but the production of TMA in the gut that generates TMAO. Additionally, feeding mice resveratrol also increased levels of various bacterial species, including Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium.

Too much of a good thing

Before you start stocking up on resveratrol-rich foods, it’s important to remember too much of a good thing can cause health problems too.

For example, increasing your resveratrol intake by eating dark chocolate is OK, so long as you don’t overdo it. Be sure you’re eating minimally processed dark chocolate that contains high percentages of cocoa.

Consuming wine, along with beer and baked goods, can also be a problem for your gut, as these foods contain sulfites that can inhibit the growth of beneficial bacteria in your gut if you’re not careful.

Feeding your gut by taking a probiotic like EndoMune Advanced Probiotic, with multiple strains of beneficial bacteria may shield your heart health from cardiovascular diseases, like diabetes and chronic inflammation too.

How Aphrodisiacs can Help Fight Disease Read More »

More Food Additives May Harm Your Gut

We warned you recently about a gut bacteria connection to nitrites, a common food additive that may be a trigger for migraines. However, nitrites aren’t the only potential problem harming your gut health.

Your gut health may undergo changes or be compromised by chemical preservatives added to an array of foods, based on the results of two new studies.

Are antimicrobials benign?

As we’ve seen time and again, the use of antibacterial soaps and antibiotics has created unintended problems that have often made us too clean for our good.

Antimicrobial compounds work like antibacterials, with one key exception: Antibacterials prevent the spread of bacteria alone, while antimicrobials eliminate a wider range of critters, including viruses, yeasts, fungi and bacteria.

In a surprise to scientists at the University of Massachusetts, one specific antimicrobial compound – the food-grade polymer, polylysine — was responsible for the temporary disruption of gut bacteria in mice, according to a study appearing in Science of Food.

Polylysine is used as a food preservative in Korea and Japan as well as foods imported to America. (It’s commonly used in boiled rice, noodles, cooked rice and sushi.)

Over 15 weeks, researchers studied fecal samples taken from male and female mice that were fed polylysine at three different times (the beginning then at five and nine weeks).

“The concentrations of gut microbes changed in response to polylysine as we fed the mice throughout the study,” said Dr. David Sela, a nutritional biologist and lead study author, according to a press release.

“Surprisingly, the microbiome snapped back to the original concentrations despite continuous feeding of the polylysine, but we don’t understand how or the potential relevance to health.”

By week 5 of their study, the microbiomes of mice given polylysine had changed, but shifted back to normal at week 9.

It’s obvious that the microbiomes of mice adapted to this antimicrobial compound for reasons scientists can’t explain. Is that a good thing? And, how does this affect gut health over a longer time?

Is wine harming your gut?

Researchers at the University of Hawai’i Maui were far more definitive about the effect sulfites – a food preservative used in baked goods, beer and wine and canned vegetables just to name a few — have on the beneficial bacteria in your body, and it’s not good.

FDA regulations limit sulfites in processed foods to 5,000 parts per million, not a great amount. Nevertheless, some people are very sensitive to sulfites and must avoid them.

Researchers exposed four bacterial species in the human microbiome (from the Lactobacillus and Streptococcus families) to concentrations of two common kinds of sulfites (sodium bisulfite and sodium sulfite) in smaller concentrations (10-3,780 ppm) for up to six hours for a study appearing in PLOS One.

Unfortunately, these sulfites were responsible for killing or inhibiting the growth of beneficial bacteria, results that lead researcher Dr. Sally Irwin says could be a direct link between diseases and changes in the human microbiome.

Yes, food additives are a problem for people who are sensitive to them, but these results certainly shed a new light on what’s considered “safe” and “healthy.”All the more reason to protect and fortify your health with a multi-species probiotic like EndoMune Advanced Probiotic with 10 essential species of beneficial bacteria plus a prebiotic that feeds the good guys in your gut.