Let’s start with an analogy and cast our minds to the environment. Since the 1970s, most parts of the world have embraced the importance of protecting our natural environment against man made destruction. We now appreciate the value of protecting bio-diversity, reducing our carbon footprint and taking on more sustainable practices to safeguard the environment and keep Mother Nature in good health. We have not however paid the same attention and care over the same period for the critical and diverse environment that lives within us, our gut.

Your gut is home to a community of over a 100 trillion microbes, different bacteria (and viruses & fungi) called the microbiome. This complex system of microbes helps your body to perform an array of essential tasks including digesting food; producing essential nutrients; regulating our immune system; protecting us from harmful germs and producing chemicals such as serotonin and dopamine. As with fingerprints, each of us has our own unique microbiome, which research has shown is impacted more by our

environment (age, diet, lifestyle etc) than our genetics. Also, recent studies show that your brain affects your gut health and your gut affects your brain health. The two organs are connected both physically and biochemically, the communication system between them is called the gut-brain axis.

 

The last two decades of research have shown that a poor diet (which includes a lot of processed foods and few fresh whole foods) leads to an unhealthy gut. And that turns out to be an enormous problem as many modern-day illnesses such as obesity (a major cause of cancer), Type 2 diabetes, autism, irritable bowel syndrome, allergies (including food allergies, eczema, and psoriasis) and mental illness including Alzheimer’s and even depression have been linked to root causes which begin in our gut.

“Modern science is uncovering increasing evidence to suggest a healthy gut may be the key to warding off disease and improving our mental and physical health.”

Since the mid-20th century, we have fortified our food with added nutrients and supplemented our diet with vitamins and more recently, extracts, proteins, prebiotics, probiotics, and a range of other micro and macronutrients. This was a good way of ensuring large populations receive the essential nutrients required to make up for a lack of these nutrients in our diet. We have been led to believe that if we have a deficiency in our diet or wish to optimise our health and performance, these supplements or fortified processed foods will offer these missing nutrients.

However, strong scientific evidence shows we do not absorb nutrients in the same way from supplements and fortified foods, as we do from whole foods. The simple reason is that natural unprocessed foods are packed with complex structures containing hundreds of natural chemicals that interact with one another and in most cases, this results in greater absorption into the body. This concept is known as food synergy, and the research on this topic has questioned whether taking vitamins such as C, D, E, B12, turmeric extract, or pea protein in isolation as supplements is as effective as consuming them in their natural form in whole foods.

“Research has shown that although supplements may be beneficial where there is no natural source of nutrients available or an immediate deficiency, whole foods are much more efficient to gain nutrients due to the synergistic interactions between the complex array of chemicals they contain. Aside from potentially improving absorption of nutrients they can also provide a buffer, for example, foods with high quantities of unsaturated fats, like nuts, have high amounts of compounds with antioxidant properties, which protect against the instability of these fats.”

There is still more to be discovered in the gut, but one thing we know for sure is a healthy gut is rich in a diversity of microbes. We can achieve this by eating a large variety of fresh produce fruits and vegetables. The more varied your diet and broader the range of fresh foods you include, the healthier your gut will be, and the fitter, mentally sharper and happier you will feel.

^{_{1 Genetic determinants of the gut microbiome in UK Twins, Goodrich, Cell Host Microbe, 2016}}

_{2 The complexities of the diet-microbiome relationship: advances and perspectives – Leeming et al. Genome Medicine, 2021}

_{3 Food synergy: an operational concept for understanding nutrition. D. Jacobs. 2009}