Once in a while , furor diets hit on something real . Take fiber , for example . The bran - gem fad of the 1980s may have passed , but experts still agree that eating high - fibre foods is important for the digestive system . A new study published in the journalScienceexplains why that might be the causa — and like so many thing in the catgut , it all boils down to bacterium .
Our trunk are literally crawling with bacterium , inside and out , but that ’s not needs a bad matter . Our skin , guts , and mouths are unique ecosystem calledmicrobiota . And like any ecosystem , they involve rest so as to thrive .
Many studies have suggested that the late upgrade in inflammation - relatedillnessescould be relate to microbial imbalances in our guts , and that those instability could be tied to changes in our environment and diet . One 2016 experiment come up that eating the mod American diet , lowly in vulcanized fiber and high-pitched in litigate foods , coulddamagenot only your microbiome but those of your descendent , too .
To better translate the link between these elements , scientists study the way gut microbes consume , digest , and break down fiber .
Fascinatingly , they found that it ’s not the roughage itself that helps — it ’s what materialize while your germ are digesting it . As they grind up and give way down chunks of fibre , they produce compound called inadequate - chain fat person loony toons . The release of these pane tells cells in the large bowel to take off gobbling up as much oxygen as they can . This , in bout , decreases the amount of oxygen being released into the gut lumen , which is the undecided distance in the bowel that hail into unmediated contact with digested solid food .
And lower oxygen levels in the lumen are a just thing . Harmful bacterium likeSalmonellaandE. colineed oxygen to live . talk in a affirmation , aged author and microbiologist Andreas Bäumlercalledthe gut " the site of constant turf wars between microbes . "
The less oxygen the pathogens get , Bäumler said , the more potential it is that helpful microbes will flourish rather .
It ’s an mutually beneficial system , first author Mariana X. Byndloss explained . " The beneficial gut bacteria that are able to break down fiber do n’t survive in an surroundings rich in atomic number 8 , which mean that our microbiota and intestinal prison cell work together to promote a virtuous cycle that keep gut health . "
