How Exercise Redefines Gut Health | #THEHUE
Discover how your sweat sessions can influence your gut health. Step into the fascinating science that connects fitness to your gut.
From the weight room to how you sleep to your shifting moods, your gut has an invisible influence that’s often overlooked. What most don’t realise is how exercise and your gut microbiome share a crucial symbiotic relationship that not only benefits your digestive tract but also helps to create a healthy environment for your gut that’ll in turn complement your overall well-being. The unseen powerful force is that of your gut, which has an influence not only on your gastrointestinal health but also on your physical performance. This relationship doesn’t just benefit digestion; it shapes the very environment in which your gut’s microbiota thrives.
When I first learned about the microbiota, which are the microorganisms that populate not only your gut but your entire body— I was in sheer awe because the facts I started to encounter felt like science fiction. There is this entirely new world I was becoming aware of that is always with me, yet completely out of sight and mostly out of mind. Also, my understanding of the human body, at that time, was entry-level science at best. So, while I loved exercise and knew how important eating healthy is, most of what I thought about most around body health was naturally more about the physical components and what I could see.
If you caught my previous article, “Why Gut Health is the Pillar to Overall Health?”, you’re aware of the gut’s pivotal role in holistic well-being. Beyond nutrition, exercise emerges as a surprisingly influential factor for your microbiome.
Moderate to high-intensity exercise can bolster your gut’s health, enhancing microbial diversity and boosting beneficial bacteria. While nutrition and what you eat are the more obvious influences on your gut, I was surprised to learn that exercise can also influence the health of your gut microbiome.
It turns out that exercise, specifically moderate to high-intensity exercise is what will have a positive influence on your gut’s health. However, ceasing exercise can reverse these benefits, as excessive high-intensity workouts of thirty minutes to an hour can lead to a ‘leaky gut’, where unwanted microorganisms, toxins, or undigested food can end up in the bloodstream. Potentially, this unwelcomed intrusion can disrupt your hormonal, immune, nervous, respiratory, or reproductive systems. Now, I hope we can all agree, that no one wants that much disruption in their life. So, understanding that ‘more isn’t always better’ as a foundational mantra is, as I preach it, crucial. It exemplifies why balance and moderation are key in exercise– and most things. We can’t eat as much chocolate as we want, even if it’s dark ;).
Fascinatingly, research suggests there’s a direct link between our microbiota and weight management. For instance, one study I came across, showed that transferring the microbiome of obese mice to leaner ones can cause significant increases in weight and body fat (Victoria Lyo, MD).
Such insights underscore the microbiota’s profound impact on health. What some studies suggest is that obesity or those suffering from an inability to lose weight are in fact related to a population of unhelpful microorganisms that make it difficult to shed the weight. That’s how powerful the microbiota is.
On a slight tangent, I wonder what the short and long-term effects of the new drug Ozempic have on a person’s microbiota. Ozempic is a new breakthrough drug developed by Danish pharma company Novo Nordisk. If you haven’t heard of it, I am sorry to tell you, that you must be living under a rock because it’s one of, if not the most, talked about pharmaceutical drugs in the world right now.
While the drug was created to help those at high risk for or suffering from type 2 diabetes, celebrities and many others interested in weight loss have selfishly also flocked to it too– making the drug more inaccessible to those who actually need it. (I know, this is the world we live in). Though its popularity raises questions about the long-term effects on general health, specifically due to the changes in the microbiota– and there’s no doubt there will be changes because even as simple as Still, its positive or negative impacts are a mystery.
Another interesting fact is how for most, once you’re on it— you’re on it for life— stopping to use it will cause rapid weight gain. Now, isn’t that an interesting incentive and a jackpot dream for a pharmaceutical company seeing their valuation and profits balloon? But, I digress— I’ll save this topic for another day.
For now, my goal is straightforward: to motivate you to embrace or continue to commit to your regular exercise regimen, for a lifetime.
Regression is a real thing, not only for your gut but also in muscle development which has a direct impact on your metabolism too. The benefits, as you can see, extend far beyond aesthetics or physical function; as the impact on your gut health is tremendous. I’m sure by now you’re seeing how important gut health is to overall health, so here are some resources you can dive deep into if you’re curious to find out more:
