Exercise and the ‘Good’ Bugs in Our Gut
By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS
excerpts:
Being physically active may encourage beneficial germs to thrive in
your gut, while inactivity could do the reverse, according to an
innovative new study. The findings
suggest that, in addition to its other health benefits, frequent
exercise may influence our weight and overall health by altering the
kinds of organisms that live inside of us.
In recent years,
there has been an explosion of interest in the role that gut microbes
play in whole-body health. A multitude of studies have shown that people
with large and diverse germ populations in their digestive tracts tend
to be less prone to obesity, immune problems and other health disorders
than people with low microbial diversity, and that certain germs, in
particular, may contribute to improved metabolic and immune health.
But little science had examined the interplay between physical activity
and gut bugs in people. So, for a study published this month in Gut,
researchers at University College Cork, part of the National University
of Ireland, and other institutions, set out to learn more by turning to a
group of people who exercise a lot: the national rugby team of
Ireland...
For the sake of comparison, the researchers also
recruited two groups of healthy adult men, none of them athletes. One
group consisted of men with a normal body mass index. Most of the men in
this group exercised occasionally but lightly.
The men in the
final group were generally sedentary and had a body mass index that
would qualify them as overweight or obese. This group was included, Dr.
Shanahan said, because the rugby players, although supremely fit, were
physically huge, with body masses well above normal. The researchers
wanted to compare their gut microbes to those of men whose weight was
similar, if not their musculature....
As it turned out, the
internal world of the athletes was quite different from that of the men
in either of the control groups. The rugby players had considerably more
diversity in the make-up of their gut microbiomes, meaning that their
intestinal tracts hosted a greater variety of germs than did those of
the other men, especially the men in the group with the highest B.M.I.
The rugby players’ guts also harbored larger numbers of a particular
bacterium, uneuphoniously named Akkermansiaceae, that has been linked in
past studies with a decreased risk for obesity and systemic
inflammation.
Interestingly, the rugby players’ blood showed
low levels of markers for inflammation, even though the men were
exercising intensely. Their muscles were being pummeled but, in
physiological terms, recovering well....
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/18/exercise-and-the-good-bugs-in-our-gut/
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