Miami Living Magazine features the best Miami has to offer. Click on any magazine below and enjoy. You can download our free app on iTunes. Ideal for iPad and iPhone users.
Issue link: https://digital.miamilivingmagazine.com/i/1525495
Healthy diets might then benefit from reintroducing key microbes into the gastrointestinal tract. Research has shown that specific strains of probiotic bacteria can improve barrier function, reduce systemic inflammation and potentially enhance athletic performance by mitigating the side effects of high-intensity exercise. An alternative approach is to increase consumption of fermented foods, such as yogurt and pickled vegetables, which can increase microbiome diversity and decrease systemic inflammation. In some cases, healthy foods might also be complemented by directly providing the body the key metabolites that microbes produce. Research shows that these metabolites – also called postbiotics or exercise mimetics – enhance muscle strength and exercise performance. Some postbiotics also function as prebiotics that fuel the growth of healthy microbes and help restore a damaged microbiome. From research to podium While the benefits of nutrition targeting your microbiome and mitochondria for general health are increasingly clear, this approach is still in the early days of exploration in endurance sports. For the occasional exerciser and weekend warrior, whole nutrition strategies that support the microbiome and mitochondria could be quite helpful. These strategies have the potential to improve performance, protect against adverse training effects and prevent chronic health conditions like obesity, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. For elite athletes seeking even the smallest of improvements in an already finely tuned training regimen, further research into the gut microbiome’s influence on performance might be invaluable. In a highly competitive field where nothing can be left off the table — or in the cupboard — such interventions might just be the deciding factor between finishing on the podium or off it. Foods with probiotics, such as yogurt, can be beneficial to your microbiome. By Christopher Damman Associate Professor of Gastroenterology, School of Medicine, University of Washington. Special thanks to The Conversation. Support by donating today: https://donate.theconversation.com/us Image by Atlas, Adobe Stock