Food for Thought: Your Gut Has Its Own Community
Inside your digestive system lives a huge and diverse community of bacteria and other microorganisms. Together, these are known as the gut microbiome.
Rather than thinking of bacteria as automatically harmful, many of the microorganisms living in our gut are a normal part of the human body.
What does the gut microbiome do?
The gut microbiome is involved in a number of processes. Gut microorganisms can help:
- Break down parts of food that we cannot fully digest ourselves
- Produce certain vitamins and other compounds
- Interact with the immune system
- Support the environment of the digestive tract
- Produce substances that can communicate with other systems in the body
Everyone's microbiome is different
There isn't one single “perfect” gut microbiome.
Our gut microbial community can be influenced by many things, including diet, age, genetics, environment, illness, medication and lifestyle. Antibiotics can also temporarily change the gut microbiome.
This means we should be cautious about claims suggesting that one particular food, supplement or diet will “fix” everyone's gut.
The gut and brain communicate
You may have heard the phrase “gut-brain axis.” This describes the two-way communication between the digestive system and the brain through several pathways, including nerves, hormones, immune signalling and substances produced by gut microorganisms.
Researchers are investigating how these interactions may relate to digestion, stress responses, mood, cognition and mental health.
But this is an evolving area of research.
It would be too simplistic to say that changing the gut microbiome can automatically treat anxiety, depression, ADHD, autism or other mental-health or neurodevelopmental conditions.
Supporting your gut doesn't require perfection
A varied diet containing foods you can comfortably tolerate can support nutritional and digestive health. But not everybody can eat a wide variety of foods, particularly people living with ARFID, sensory differences, allergies, intolerances or digestive conditions.
There is no need for shame or pressure.
Your gut is an ecosystem — and we're still learning just how complex that ecosystem is.
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