The Metabolism-Microbiome Connection

I’m known as America’s Gut Health Doctor, so it won’t surprise you to learn that many of my patients are looking to heal their gut and reverse digestive issues.

What might surprise you, is that a surprising number of my patients are also seeking help for metabolic issues, like weight gain, diabetes, or polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS).

What gives?

As it turns out, in order to optimize your metabolic health, you have to optimize your gut health too. In fact, if you don’t address the gut when you’re trying to address metabolic issues, you’ll be left spinning your wheels , losing weight only to gain it right back, and relying purely on willpower, which nearly always fails in the end.

What is Metabolic Health?

Many people think about metabolic health as the rate your body burns calories that controls your weight. But actually, it’s much more than that. When we talk about metabolism, we’re talking about the processes in the body that control our overall energy balance. In a more practical sense, this means the steps that help your body convert the nutrients in what you eat and drink into usable energy that powers your cells.

So, for example, if you eat a meal, your body would break down the proteins, carbohydrates, and fats in the food you eat, absorb the nutrients through the GI tract, and then take those nutrients and send them to the places in the body where they are needed most. Metabolism involves processes like fat storage and fat burning, blood sugar balance and our insulin response (your blood sugar regulating hormone), and the way we burn calories, which is why you’ll often hear metabolism referenced in the context of weight loss.

If you’re metabolically healthy, you’ll have healthy blood sugar, a healthy body composition, and your body will efficiently use or store the nutrients in the foods you eat in a way that promotes long-term health. If you are metabolically unhealthy, you run the risk of dangerous health complications like stroke, heart attack, heart disease, diabetes, and even severe infections.

So, what does it take to be metabolically healthy? Many conventional medicine resources will tell you that it’s as simple as eating less and exercising more. But the latest science begs to differ. What we know now is that metabolic health isn’t so simple, and it’s greatly affected by beyond just diet and exercise, like stress, genetics , and of course, the gut microbiome.

The Metabolism-Microbiome Connection

It might seem like metabolic health and the gut microbiome exist as separate parts of our physiology as humans, but the overlap between the two is actually pretty striking. This mostly comes back to the microbiome, and the way the bacteria in your gut influence not just the way you digest food but the way your whole body functions.

 

For example:

• One study showed that the relative proportion of Bacteroidetes bacteria is less in obese people compared to lean people, and that their relative predominance increases with weight loss.
• Research shows that shifts in the makeup of the gut bacteria have an effect on energy production and fat storage.
• Studies show that chronic inflammation caused by leaky gut and microbiome imbalances is a primary risk factor for chronic metabolic disease.

In fact, research shows that microbiome health can be associated with all the major metabolic health markers, including waist circumference, blood sugar levels, triglyceride levels, LDL cholesterol, blood pressure, and uric acid levels. It’s often the one missing link for people who are striving to achieve a healthy weight. And the issue that ties together gut health with weight gain is a tiny molecule called endotoxin that, when absorbed, especially when the gut barrier is leaky, leads to endotoxemia . ^[1]

Endotoxin is a toxin present in the cell membrane of certain bacteria in the gut (typically gram negative ones, like the infamous E. Coli) that protects the bacteria from attack and helps reinforce the structural integrity of their membranes. Studies have shown that a high level of endotoxins in the blood is a precursor for immune-related inflammation, weight gain, obesity, and metabolic syndrome. ^[2]

Clearly, there are endless connections between these two systems. And that means that if something is awry with your gut — either from a poor diet, a gut heath issue like Irritable Bowel Syndrome or Inflammatory Bowel Disease, or just from everyday stressors like antibiotics, medications, and chronic stress — it can lead to problems with metabolic health.

The good news is that you can also use this connection to your benefit. By healing your gut, you can also optimize metabolic health in just a few easy steps.

Heal Your Gut to Optimize Your Metabolism in 5 Steps

You can easily make a blended breakfast smoothie with a nut or non-dairy milk and the Cleanse Shake, to start the day with the extra peace of mind, knowing you’re getting the right synergistic blend of nutrients to support energy production and a healthy metabolism, resulting in a slimmer waistline without ever feeling hungry. That’s because the ingredients in Cleanse Shake work together to help you feel satisfied, energized and balanced so that you can make the right food choices for the rest of the day.

The ultimate solution to addressing microbiome and metabolic health in one, easy step!