Can Intermittent Fasting Promote Gut Health?

What you eat and when you eat go a long way to determine your overall health. Your diet and the timing of your meals influence how the trillions of microbes in your gut function. To this extent, intermittent fasting impacts your gut health in more ways than you know. So sit back and learn how intermittent fasting boosts your wellbeing, aids weight loss, and keep diseases at bay.

What is intermittent fasting?

Intermittent fasting (IF) is a structured pattern of abstaining from food at irregular intervals to achieve a health benefit. While there are scientific evidences that intermittent fasting promotes weight loss, improves gut health, and boosts physiological functions, it must be done the right way for optimum benefits.

There is always a fasting window around which healthy diets are incorporated. Depending on your preference and ability, intermittent fasting could be the restriction of food or reduction of calories for given days. There is the 16/8 model where you fast for 16 hours and eat a healthy diet within an eight-hour period; and there is the 5:2 protocol where you eat for five days and lower your calorie consumption for the remaining two days in the week.

There is also the alternate-day fasting model, where you eat for one full day and fast throughout the next. This means you eat as you normally do for 24 hours and then fast for the next 24 hours, and then repeat the cycle once again. In a week, you will have eaten 3–4 days and fasted 3–4 days on alternate days.

What is gut health?

In simple terms, gut health is the optimum condition at which the microorganisms resident in your intestines function to aid your general wellbeing. The entire body of microorganisms living to break down your food intake to release nutrients and energy is called microbiome. The extent to which the microbes in your guts function affects your digestive health, emotional and cognitive balance, as well as overall wellness.

It must be noted that apart from diet and timing of meals, drugs or dietary supplements also impact gut microbiota by modifying its diversity and population. This influences how the body fights diseases, promotes weight loss, or boosts general wellbeing.

Relationship between fasting and gut microbiome

Scientific evidence proves that the composition of gut microbiome is determined by diet; and the time it is consumed. Essentially, this means that the microbial composition of microorganisms in your intestine changes from day to day — or even hours to hours — based on what you eat and when you eat it.

A 2009 research conducted by Peter Turnbaugh of Harvard University and Lawrence David of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, revealed that extreme diet change can significantly modify gut microbiome in terms of their population and how they operate to keep the body in balance. They recruited a group of five volunteers who were fed animal products such as bacon, salami, and cheese for five days; and another group of five volunteers who were fed plant products such as grains, vegetables, and fruits for five days.

The researchers then extracted DNA and bacteria as well as certain molecules from the feces of the study participants to determine the level of gene activity and amount of gene profiles in gut microbes. Ultimately, they found that in the meat-eating group, the population and activity of certain bacteria increased to process meat diet; and those in the plant-eating group had different bacteria that surfaced to metabolize carbohydrates without noticeable abundance.

Can intermittent fasting promote gut health?

Yes. Intermittent fasting is beneficial to gut health. A 2014 study conducted on lab mice revealed that bad gut bacteria die out fast under intermittent fasting, while good bacteria survive — a process that helps the body to maintain positive bacteria clearance.

Given that people sleep for 8 hours every night — meaning 8 hours of unintended fasting — active gut bacteria rest during this period since there is no new food to metabolize. The period of bacteria rest promotes healthy sleep cycle, thereby promoting physiological wellness and improved health.

Health and nutrition experts opine from available evidences that intermittent fasting can prevent certain cancers, enhance cardiovascular health, aid weight loss, and improve cognitive and emotional functions. Other related health benefits of short fasting include reduced cholesterol, regulated blood sugar levels, preventable diabetes, deeper sleep cycles, and improved metabolic health among other benefits.

Conclusion

It is important to note that researchers are still investigating the health benefits of intermittent fasting on gut microbiome. To this end, it is best to talk to your doctor before commencing on any fast or diet regimen. You may also want to observe that gut bacteria composition differs from one person to another, so intermittent fasting may not be suitable for everyone — and noticeable benefits may differ from one individual to another.