How quickly can you change the gastrointestinal flora?

These bacteria even affect our mood, more of the friendly bacteria results in a better mood.

How can we change and improve the gastrointestinal flora?

There are numerous formulas on the market promising to do that and while some of them may be helpful, there is still a lot of beneficial bacteria we don’t know about.

We do know what these friendly bacteria like to feed on, so why not give them what they like?

Why not give them different food for a few days and see what happens?

That’s exactly what was done in this study (David LA, et al. 2014).

For 5 days the participants were given a diet of mainly animal products, and for another 5 days they were given a diet composed of plant products.

Their gastrointestinal flora was evaluated before they started and after each diet.

It only took 4 days before the flora had changed.

When the participants ate the animal based diet, their flora changed to accommodate that kind of food, and when they ate the plant based diet, their bacteria changed to accommodate that diet.

What’s important, however, is that the abundance and activity of Bilophila wadsworthia produced by the animal based diet supported a link between dietary fat, bile acids and the outgrowth of microorganisms capable of triggering inflammatory bowel disease.

It is important to keep in mind that inflammation triggered in the gastrointestinal tract goes systemically which means it affects the rest of the body.

Now you have a choice, you just have to decide what kind of bacteria you want to feed.