Gut health is simple: eat well and exercise

HAVE you heard about probiotics?

Unless you’ve managed to ignore health news from the last 10 years, I’m assuming you have.

For those who haven’t, probiotics are good bacteria, usually taken as capsules or powder, that are designed to increase the number of good bacteria in our gut.

They’ve become so popular recently because they continue to surprise scientists with their potential health benefits.

Various studies have listed benefits relating to gut and digestive health but also to improvements in immune health, eczema and multiple other conditions, with more studies still in the wings.

The reason I’m writing about them today is that a recently published scientific article looked into changes in gut bacteria in response to exercise.

Yes, you read that correctly. The researchers tracked changes in bacteria in people who were asked to exercise three times a week for six weeks.

They found that in every subject, the make-up of the bacteria changed significantly, then returned to baseline again after ceasing exercise for six weeks.

Interestingly, they did this without making any changes to diet.

What I find fascinating about this study is the way science continues to reveal how simple staying healthy is. Sure, we tend to make things complicated but the general rules have not changed in millennia.

Typically, those who are healthiest are still those who eat a good diet of simple, unprocessed foods like meat and vegies and who exercise on a regular basis. Dr Michael Osborne is a chiropractor at HealthGuard Wellness, Toowoomba, and a member of the Chiropractors’ Association of Australia.