Aging healthily is possible, and taking care of your gut microbiota is a good place to start
Good health and longevity have been very clearly linked in many research studies in the past, and the role of good gut health has been a focal point for the last few year too.
From 'you are what you eat' to 'eat dirt', we have been re-educated about what is good for health and what is good for our gut-health too - sometimes odd and sometimes common sense too - but the wellness and gut-health connection is also very closely connected to our life expectancy.
We live longer when we are healthy - that's not surprising at all, but what has been interesting has been to see and discover just how critical the health of our microbiome is in this recipe for good, long life.
Take a look at the article that goes into a lot more detail, and shares the research too, and discover for yourself what the secret to longevity in the gut is all about.
Considering the gut microbiome as a factor that affects health and longevity is by no means a new idea. Elie Metchnikoff, considered the father of probiotics, proposed more than a century ago that targeting the gut by consuming lactic acid bacteria, such as those found in yogurt, could delay the onset of cognitive decline associated with aging.
INRAE Research Director acknowledges that, in 2017, Dawn Bowdish’s team showed in mice that aging comes with an alteration in the microbiota that may promote inflammation.
But the theory linking the gut microbiome to healthy aging was largely ignored by scientists until recently.
Read the full article here.
Blog Article References:
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Mackowiak PA. Recycling Metchnikoff: probiotics, the intestinal microbiome and the quest for long life. Front Public Health. 2013; 1:52. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2013.00052.
Boehme M, Guzzetta KE, Bastiaanssen TFS, et al. Microbiota from young mice counteracts selective age-associated behavioral effects. Nat Aging. 2021; 1:666-676. doi: 10.1038/s43587-021-00093-9.
Biagi E, Franceschi C, Rampelli S, et al. Gut microbiota and extreme longevity. Curr Biol. 2016; 26(11):1480-1485. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2016.04.016.
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Sato Y, Atarashi K, Plichta DR, et al. Novel bile acid biosynthetic pathways are enriched in the microbiome of centenarians. Nature. 2021. doi: 10.1038/s41586-021-03832-5.