Half-God and full-on hero, Hercules embodies strength, athleticism, and vigor. What if you had a source of untapped energy and wellness that could improve your daily life and make you feel more like Hercules? Interestingly, science is proving there is a source of vitality that impacts every aspect of a man’s health – and that is the gut microbiome.
Your gut microbiome is a unique collection of microorganisms that reside in your gastrointestinal tract. These microbes hold powerful sway over your hormones, metabolism, and energy production. This trifecta of influence means your gut microbiome influences the most important elements of your daily performance, from your energy levels to your motivation to your mood.
There is no doubt about it – your gut microbiome is the head of the house.
You may be thinking, “Wait a minute. How can bacteria in my gut have such a powerful influence over my wellbeing?”
These are more than a few bacteria, my friend. Your microbiome consists of over 100 trillion bacteria, archaea, fungi, viruses, and other tiny organisms that evolved alongside us over thousands of years. They help you digest your food, synthesize neurotransmitters, make nutrients, maintain your gut lining, and help keep your immune system strong. That is… IF they are coexisting together in healthy harmony.
When this ecosystem of microbes is thrown out of whack, it can lead to weight gain, fatigue, depression, and even disease. In fact, your gut microbiome is so influential to your health on so many levels that therapies targeting the gut microbiome are arguably the fastest-growing area of psychopharmacology and other disease treatments.
You’re a smart guy, and now you can use the power of your gut microbiome to improve your hormones, metabolism, and energy production. When you combine these three fundamental factors, you can unlock your next level of health.
How Your Gut Microbiome Affects Your Hormones
Your gut microbiome is a star player in your hormonal orchestra. In fact, it’s so important to how many of your hormones are produced and managed in your body that many have suggested the gut microbiome is another endocrine system organ. 1 Your gut microbiome also affects the development and regulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, which is your major neuroendocrine system. 2
Have you thought about your neuroendocrine system lately? You probably have without realizing it because this system affects your:
Stress levels
Moods
Emotions
Sex drive
While you might have once thought these were mostly controlled by the mind, we are finding your gut microbiome is the invisible hand that manipulates your mental state through the production and regulation of hormones and other impactful metabolites. 3 The gut microbiota has even been shown to alter sex hormone levels in animal studies. 4
So, if you want to have better stress resilience, feel happier, and sexier, you must consider the health of the microbes that live in your gut. What’s more, studies show these little guys also play a huge role in your weight management – another source of potential satisfaction.
How Your Gut Microbiome Affects Your Metabolism
You want to feel good and look good, too. What if certain microbes living in your gut could make it easier to lose weight and keep it off? While we haven’t found a magical probiotic that can make you lose weight, we have found that certain strains of bacteria are associated with obesity and others with being lean.
Studies of overweight people show a marked decrease in overall microbial diversity. There is also a shift in the composition of species of bacteria present. For example, overweight or obese individuals have more Firmicutes bacteria and around 90% less Bacteroidetes than their lean counterparts. 5
These observations aren’t a lucky coincidence. We can actually tell with over 90% accuracy if you are overweight or in shape just based on your gut microbiome composition – pretty fascinating, isn’t it? 6
Furthermore, overuse of antibiotics is believed to be contributing to the rise in obesity through their negative impact on the gut microbiome. 5 Children who are given antibiotics in their first year of life have a higher risk of being overweight or even obese by the time they are 7 years old. 7 While a sick child is no fun, this suggests we have a serious responsibility to take antibiotic use more seriously – especially when it comes to our children.
What does this research mean for you? Maintaining a healthy weight means caring for your gut microbiome – your gut health matters!
How Your Gut Microbiome Affects Your Energy Production
If all this isn’t already impressive enough, your gut microbiome also helps with energy regulation. This means you could unlock energy when you take steps to improve your gut health – talk about leveling up!
Studies have found that the gut microbiota are important in determining how much energy we extract from the food we eat, which translates into energy production. Energy production on a cellular level affects how much energy you have day-to-day.
Certain microbes are able to digest plant polysaccharides and complex carbs that you are incapable of digesting yourself. These same microbes take those otherwise useless foods and turn them into short-chain fatty acids. 5 Butyrate is an especially beneficial short-chain fatty acid made by some of our microbes. Butyrate is a primary energy source for your colon cells, increases insulin sensitivity, and is protective against gut lining damage and metabolic endotoxemia that results in inflammation. 8 Butyrate also increases energy production through improving mitochondrial function – and mitochondria are the powerhouses of your cells. 8
Targeting the gut microbiome for increased energy and endurance has piqued the interest of athletes and their coaches. 8 Additionally, researchers wonder if they can find performance secrets from studying elite athletes' gut microbiomes.
Will we have to worry about “gut microbiome doping” in the future of professional sports? Only time will tell, but the implications are fascinating.
Hack Your Gut Microbiome with Viome
Now for the good stuff… How do you take this groundbreaking information and hack your own gut for optimal health?
Viome is a revolutionary service that gives you deep insight into the inner workings of your gut microbiome. When you sign up for a Viome test, you get access to an in-depth analysis of your unique gut microbiome and personalized food and supplement recommendations based on what is optimal for your unique microbiome.
By eating specific foods that boost beneficial bacteria while starving the bad guys, you can leverage your gut microbes to work in your favor. You now know how critical your gut microbiome is to your overall well-being – let Viome help you hack your gut for better health.
Show dad he means the world to you by giving him the gift of helping him hack his gut on this Father’s Day. When you sign him up for Viome, he only needs to take a simple two-minute test that results in powerful health insights and valuable personalized nutrition information. He’ll receive his results on his Viome app, so he can easily follow his recommendations and start seeing results fast!
Resources:
Clarke G, Stilling RM, Kennedy PJ, Stanton C, Cryan JF, Dinan TG. Minireview: Gut microbiota: the neglected endocrine organ. Mol Endocrinol. 2014;28(8):1221-1238. doi:10.1210/me.2014-1108
Sudo N. Microbiome, HPA axis and production of endocrine hormones in the gut. Adv Exp Med Biol. 2014;817:177-194. doi:10.1007/978-1-4939-0897-4_8
Evrensel A, Ceylan ME. The Gut-Brain Axis: The Missing Link in Depression. Clin Psychopharmacol Neurosci. 2015;13(3):239-244. doi:10.9758/cpn.2015.13.3.239
Markle JG, Frank DN, Mortin-Toth S, et al. Sex differences in the gut microbiome drive hormone-dependent regulation of autoimmunity. Science. 2013;339(6123):1084-1088. doi:10.1126/science.1233521
Davis CD. The Gut Microbiome and Its Role in Obesity. Nutr Today. 2016;51(4):167-174. doi:10.1097/NT.0000000000000167
Davis CD. The Gut Microbiome and Its Role in Obesity. Nutr Today. 2016;51(4):167-174. doi:10.1097/NT.0000000000000167
Cox LM, Blaser MJ. Antibiotics in early life and obesity. Nat Rev Endocrinol. 2015;11(3):182-190. doi:10.1038/nrendo.2014.21
Chakraborti CK. New-found link between microbiota and obesity. World J Gastrointest Pathophysiol. 2015;6(4):110-119. doi:10.4291/wjgp.v6.i4.110
