How to feed your gut for better slumber

THE SCIENCE is clear — sleep is crucially important to almost all aspects of our mental and physical health right now it seems important to shine a spotlight on how good sleep bolsters immunity and poor sleep leaves you open to coughs, colds — even coronavirus.

Whether you normally sleep fitfully or well, or whether you’re one of the estimated third of the UK population who, like me, suffers from occasional insomnia, be reassured, there is much you can do to improve your sleep and, shore up your immune system.

I’ve devised a brilliant new plan which brings together the latest research about the impact of diet on sleep, blending it with a super-easy version of a tried-andtrusted insomnia cure that seems to be the sleep specialists’ best kept secret.

all this week the Mail is serialising my book, Fast asleep, with four-page pullouts detailing my insomnia-busting programme. and it couldn’t come at a better time.

The simplest and most pleasurable way you can improve your sleep and protect yourself against disease — fast — is to make a few adjustments to your food choices to boost the range and diversity of the trillions of microbes living in your gut. look after them, and they will look after you.

That means making your diet more Mediterranean and shifting your focus towards eating more of the vegetables and pulses your microbiome really loves.

We have long known that the Mediterranean diet is great for your health and your waistline. It will also cut the risk of heart attack or stroke by about 30 per cent, reduce your risk of type 2 diabetes by 50 per cent, and of breast cancer by 70 per cent.

But I am also excited by research, which shows that it is also an important weapon in the battle against insomnia.

That’s because these foods are fantastic at reducing inflammation in the body and boosting levels of the ‘good’ bacteria in your gut. These in turn play an important role in determining whether you sleep fitfully or not.

The traditional Mediterranean diet includes plenty of olive oil, nuts, oily fish, fruit, veg and wholegrains. It means eating reasonable amounts of full-fat yoghurt and cheese, plus a glass or two of red wine with supper.

as a bonus, because these foods keep you really full, it reduces the urge to snack on cakes, biscuits and highly processed food that badly affect your mood and your sleep.

GET IN THE MOOD

a large Italian study published last year, for example, found that people who eat a Mediterranean diet are more than twice as likely to enjoy decent quality sleep as those who don’t.

The participants not only slept for longer, but they found it easier to drop off and were less likely to have a disturbed night. a separate U.S. study also looked at the links between diet and sleep in more than 2,000 middleaged men and women, and again found a clear link between the Mediterranean diet, and how well those on it slept.

There are several reasons why it helps sleep. Firstly, this is because the foods, such as olive oil, oily fish, legumes and vegetables, contain antiinflammatory compounds, including oleic acid, omega-3 fatty acids and polyphenols.

Inflammation leads to arthritis and other painful conditions that keep people awake at night. We also know that neuro-inflammation (inflammation of the brain), which becomes more common as we get older, contributes to poor sleep and dementia.

But importantly, one of the most striking and surprising

aspects of this diet is the effect it has on mood. When Professor Felice Jacka, director of the Food & Mood Centre at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia, wanted to test the impact of a modified version of the Mediterranean diet on people with depression, there was so much scepticism from colleagues that she struggled to convince enough patients to take part.

In the end she managed to recruit 67 people with moderate to severe depression. She randomly allocated half to a Mediterranean diet and half received ‘social support’.

To her enormous relief, the results were impressive. A third of those in the Mediterranean diet group showed such big improvements in mood they were no longer classified as ‘depressed’. Their mood and anxiety scores were four times better than those getting social support — and their sleep improved.

So what was it about changing their diet that had such a powerful effect on mood? Felice thinks it could be because the Mediterranean diet reduces inflammation and oxidative stress (it contains lots of antioxidants that help mop up free radicals, which otherwise damage brain cells).

She also believes the diet’s effect on the microbiome — the trillions of microbes that live in our guts — plays a role. This is an area her team is now studying intensely.

There’s no doubt that the vegetables and legumes that form a central part of the classic Mediterranean diet are a great way to boost levels of the ‘good’ bacteria in your gut — and we know that some of them produce powerful anti-inflammatory agents, as well as chemicals which reduce anxiety.

Since one of the main reasons people stay awake at night is because they are fretting, anything that improves mood is likely to be good for sleep.

BOOST YOUR GUT INSTINCT

AMAzIngly, the ‘good’ bacteria in your gut manufacture 95 per cent of the body’s serotonin, which is known as the ‘feel-good hormone’, as it adds to our sense of wellbeing and happiness.

As well as affecting our mood, serotonin plays a role in regulating appetite, digestion, sleep and sexual desire. Unfortunately, our guts also harbour plenty of ‘bad’ microbes, ones that create inflammation, contribute to anxiety, depression, weight gain . . . and sleepless nights.

It’s now clear that one of the secrets to a long and healthy life is having a wide range of helpful microbes living in your gut. Research shows that people with the most diverse microbiomes have the best quality sleep, which includes longer total sleep time, higher sleep efficiency and much less night-time waking.

greater diversity is good because it leads to a much more capable and resilient microbial community — one in which there is more competition which makes it harder for the ‘bad’ guys to dominate.

It also means creating a hospitable environment for microbes with important chemical talents to flourish. So, a healthy gut will benefit from having firefightermicrobes to put out inflammation, builder-microbes to repair the gut wall and pharmo-microbes to create the natural chemicals that help us sleep better.

Among the gut species that appear to help people sleep better are Bacteroidetes, which produce gABA, a neurotransmitter that promotes sleep, as well as Corynebacterium that makes another neurotransmitter, serotonin, which again has been shown to promote sleep.

BEAT EFFECTS OF AGEING

UNFORTUNATELY, our microbiome tends to become less diverse as we grow older. This is partly because we get set in our ways and choose from a narrower range of foods.

Also, there can be a growing temptation to eat a higher proportion of processed convenience foods that often contain emulsifiers your microbes do not enjoy.

By the time most people are in their 60s, healthy microbes, like lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium, have begun losing ground to opportunistic pro-inflammatory bacteria. They are called opportunistic because they can cause an infection when given half a chance.

older people also take more prescription drugs, which can play havoc with the microbiome, and they do less exercise, which again reduces microbiome diversity.

The good news is you can swiftly alter the mix of microbes that live in your gut by changing what you eat. By avoiding sugar and junk food you can starve out ‘bad’ bacteria, and by filling your plate with delicious vegetables, pulses and wholegrains you can create the best possible environment for ‘good’ bacteria to thrive.

There’s good evidence to show that people who manage to keep their gut garden in good shape as they age not only develop less chronic disease but also sleep more soundly.