Inside, billions of microscopic organisms coexist, many of whom have our Digestive tract set as a place of residence. Throughout the last decades we have been realizing the outstanding role that this internal ecosystem plays in our health, far beyond gastrointestinal health.
There are many factors that can affect our microbiome, including our genetics, our place of residence, the people with whom we live, the drugs we consume or our daily habits. And of course, our diet.
Our diet can affect different ways to the microbiome of our interior. For example, the introduction of a pathogen such as the clostridium difficile bacteria can cause the Intestinal “ecosystem” balance Go to the fret due to the propagation of the bacteria. However, without reaching pathological extremes, the nutrients we consume, such as fiber, can also affect the microorganisms that reside there.
What we eat affects, but this also implies that what we stop eating also matters. Following a diet leads us to make a series of decisions focused on achieving a goal, often (not always) this is that of losing weight, but the changes introduced will have diverse effects, including that of affecting, for better or worse, our microbiome.
Intermittent fasting is one of the most fame diets in recent years. That is why diets that temporarily restrict our caloric intake and which are referred conventionally with the name of intermittent fasting have received great attention from nutrition experts.
Logically, this has led to various research groups to investigate How the intermittent fasting to our microbioma affectswhat are the potential benefits and what the risks of these changes. The problem is that, as usual, the results of these research are quite diverse. What seems true is that intermittent fasting affects our microbiota.
One of the last studies in this regard has attracted the attention of some despite not having been published in a magazine after passing the pairs review process. The work was led by researchers at Anhui Medical University and was recently summoned by the magazine NewScientist.
The study, conducted with mice, suggested that intermittent fasting could damage the intestinal barrier and cause a disruption in the microbiota, increasing the risk of intestinal inflammation. However, the door also opened therapeutic roads that could avoid these problems, such as indolaletic acid administration.
The manuscript detailing the analysis, available in repository Research Squareis still in the process of review for publication in the magazine Scientific Reports. That is why we must take these results with a certain degree of skepticism.
In statements collected by the magazine itself NewScientistSatchidananada Panda del Salk Institute for Biological Studies de California He raised some doubts Regarding the methodology, such as the fact that the manuscript did not point out the details of the diet to which it underwent mice or that these were of a very young age when starting with the diet.
For better or worse
Other studies have drawn a somewhat more optimistic perspective regarding the effects of intermittent fasting on our microbiota and with it on our well -being. Of course, I did it by introducing an additional element, combining the intermittent fasting with a protein dosing diet, which space in a balanced way the proteins that we consume throughout the day
The study, published almost exactly one year in the magazine Nature Communicationspointed out that intermittent fasting “It showed promise” in the improvement of intestinal health, and did precisely attending our microbioma.
As detailed by the team, in addition to seeing an increase in their levels of certain proteins, such as cytokines, participants who followed the protocol marked by intermittent fasting also experienced an increase in the presence of beneficial microbes in their digestive system, microorganisms associated with lower body fat and better global health.
The studies of Scientific Reports and of Nature Communications They are two of the most recent in the matter but not the only one. Last year a group of researchers published a systematic review of literature in the magazine Frontiers in Nutrition. This type of work compiles thoroughly the previous studies carried out by analyzing a specific relationship, in this case that of intermittent fasting and the gastrointestinal microbiota.
What detected the team that led this “study study” is that there was a varied literature and a “substantial heterogeneity of the results” that made it difficult to validate results, although these seemed to suggest that intermittent fasting could improve the wealth and diversity of the microbiota. What seems increasingly evident is that this type of diets affects our microbioma and that we must continue studying the consequences of this relationship.
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