It’s one thing to understand that you have trillions of microorganisms in your gut, it’s another to work out what they do.
You feed your gut microbiome by eating fibrous foods (plants) and they produce compounds which support your health - postbiotics, such as butyrate. But, if you don’t have the right bacteria in your gut, you won’t produce the postbiotics.
Here’s an example. Soy isoflavones are soybean compounds that help support women’s post-menopausal health. Bacteria in the gut break them down to create a postbiotic, equol (similar structure to estrogen).
Great, so eat soybeans and throw away the hormone replacement therapy? Ooops, problem! A study showed that only 30-60% of the Japanese population were able to break down soy isoflavone into equol because they didn’t possess the appropriate gut bacteria. The moral of the story is that if you don’t have a balanced microbiome, even when you eat healthy foods, you won’t break them down into their functional components.
So, how long does it take to move from having poor microbiome health to good?
Well, it depends on your starting health status, lifestyle factors and medication use.
The good news is that short-term changes take days and longer-term changes can be sped up with supplemented probiotics, postbiotics and a diet high in fibre and fermented foods. If you have significant dysbiosis (from antibiotics, chronic stress, poor diet or illness), then true ecosystem restoration, which includes mucosal repair, immune modulation and stable recolonisation of beneficial microbes, can take 3-6 months.
Your gut is a garden, not a machine. Real change takes time, but it’s possible. Every vegetable, every fermented food and every smart supplement helps. Zestt Gut+ Lozenges deliver probiotics encapsulated to survive stomach acid and reach the right parts of the gut to make a difference.
Build your microbiome one meal at a time and let your gut work with you for life.