Over Sixty Winter 2022 Digital
12 LIVEWELL WINTER 2022 | OVERSIXTY.COM.AU After consuming carbohydrates within fibre, gut bacteria usually produce helpful by- products that fight inflammation and help restore the mucus layer that protects the intestine. “But if the gut transit time is slow, the bacteria run out of carbohydrates to consume and start to feed on leftover protein which changes those by-products,” explains study author Professor Henrik Munch Roager from the University of Copenhagen. Instead of producing healthy bowel- restoring compounds, they produce ones high in ammonia and sulphur that might not only damage the cells of the bowel directly, but also dissolve its protective mucus layer – and a bowel with a thinner mucosal layer is believed to bemore prone to DNAmutations that lead to bowel cancer. HELEN FOSTER LIVE WELL A ll over the world right now people are turning their poo blue – and then discussing it on social media. It might sound like a bizarre new trend involving way too much sharing, but what it actually reveals is an important insight into your internal health. Here’s why some scientists are suggesting we all turn our poo blue. We all know food you put in one end comes out the other – but have you ever wondered how long it takes to do that? “This is your gut transit time andwhenwe recentlymeasured it ina trial of 1000people, theaverage time taken was around 28 hours – although anything from 14-58 hours is considered normal,” says nutritional scientist Dr Sarah Berry from Kings College London, who worked on the trial alongside research teamZOE. That trial triggered what is now known as the Blue Poop Challenge, which sees people eating a muffin containing an amount of blue food colouring shown to survive the digestive process intact. They note what time The blue muffin challenge How the simple act of eating a blue muffin can provide valuable insights into your gut health Even before we started exploring things at a cellular level, transit time was known to matter. “Amalfunctioning digestive system is the start of ill-health in many ways,” says Dr Anneline Padayachee, registered nutritionist andAdjunct Senior Lecturer at theUniversity of Queensland. “Every nutrient you eat has to pass through the digestive system before it gets to the bloodstream and a fast transit time can mean there’s not enough time for vital nutrients to be absorbed, or it could be a sign of something irritating the gut wall (eg an intolerance) or an infection (bacterial or viral) the immune system is trying hard to get ridof. Aslowtransit timemeans constipation, which can lead to discomfort from bloating and a risk of hernias and polyps from the straining involved in passing a stool.” themuffinwent in, andwhen a blue poo then comes out! The resulting time is then entered it into an app, allowing the team to collect data from thousands more people than they could ever hope to attract to a clinical trial. They’re not just doing this for fun. Their original trial threw up some important new information. It revealed for the first time that the more ‘normal’ your gut transit time, the more plentiful the amount of bacteria in your gut – and that’s something we know is linked to better health. “The bacteria in the gut are fuelled by fibre in the food we eat,” says Dr Berry. “The duration that the food is in our gutwill determinehowlong themicrobes can feast on it which in turn impacts their growth and diversity.” Short transit times move food out of the bowel effectively ‘starving’ the bacteria, while overly long transit times are likely a sign of a low fibre diet that simply does not provide enough material in the gut for the microbes to feast on. Diversity isn’t the only way transit time affects gut bacteria. In 2016, Danish researchers found longer transit times may actually make these good bacteria turn bad.
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