Diseases and Intestinal Health

Connie, HK BioTek Intern

Intestinal microbiomes which are the microorganisms living among our intestinal, is closely related to our health. Once the combination of microbiota is changed, different part of our body might raise a red light.

Inflammatory bowel disease might come first when the intestinal is unhealthy. Fast food lovers always have the imbalance eating pattern with high fat consumption combining insufficient supplementation of probiotic and prebiotic. Such eating habit directly influence the population of good bacteria and bad bacteria among the intestinal. The microbiota directly regulates our intestinal health. Due to the reduction of good bacteria and insufficient food for the microbiota, the living microorganisms cannot produce sufficient protective agents to our gut health. Crohn’s disease is one of the common examples of inflammatory bowel diseases. To maintain our intestinal health, sufficient consumption of vegetables and yogurt are highly recommended.

Obese individuals should be also aware their intestinal health. The combination of microbiota directly affects the energy uptake from our daily diet. Theoretically, obesity is a metabolic disorder that involves with energy imbalance. When people consume more energy than their energy expenditure, those energy then transfer and store as fat in our body. Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes are the two common bacteria in our body. Scientific study shows that the ratio of these two bacteria closely related to the energy absorption apart from the calorie of food. Study showed that the two groups of mice with different microbiota combination having same diet pattern results in different weight gains. It shows the importance on maintaining the intestinal population inside our gut. Food intervention is an easy handle method to manage our body weight.

Surprisingly, scientists found out that intestinal microorganisms relate to our mental. Alteration in our gut microbiota might lead to neurotoxin and consequently interfere with our brain development. When the good bacteria in our GI tract cannot produce sufficient beneficial metabolites, the chemistry in our brain is then changed. People, therefore, might be anxiety, depression, even worse, they might have cognitive dysfunction. Those symptoms are characteristic features in autism spectrum disorder. Scientists proved the relationship between intestinal dysbiosis and the disease. Therefore, eat healthy to have a better mood,

Last but not least, a healthy intestinal can help to minimize the chances of having cancer, especially colorectal cancer. There are several risk factors of the cancer, such as obesity, diabetes and the diet. Those factors also have a strong relationship with the combination of gut microbiota. In other words, the gut dysbiosis shows a casual relationship with the colorectal cancer. The dysbiosis condition stimulates the growth of tumour inside patients’ bodies. It points out the importance of regulating the population of microbiota living in our bodies.

Building a nice environment for our gut microbiota might be a feasible method to improve our body health.