{"id":1496409,"date":"2024-02-13T01:09:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-13T01:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenqueen.com.hk\/?p=70789"},"modified":"2024-02-13T01:09:00","modified_gmt":"2024-02-13T01:09:00","slug":"how-food-and-the-gut-microbiome-can-stimulate-your-bodys-natural-ozempic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2024\/02\/13\/how-food-and-the-gut-microbiome-can-stimulate-your-bodys-natural-ozempic\/","title":{"rendered":"How Food and the Gut Microbiome Can Stimulate Your Body\u2019s \u2018Natural Ozempic\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"natural<\/div><\/span> 4<\/span> Mins Read<\/span><\/span>\n

By Christopher Damman, Associate Professor of Gastroenterology, School of Medicine, University of Washington<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wegovy, Ozempic and Mounjaro<\/a>\u00a0are weight loss and diabetes drugs that have made quite a splash in health news<\/a>. They target regulatory pathways involved in both\u00a0obesity and diabetes<\/a>\u00a0and are widely considered breakthroughs for weight loss and blood sugar control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But do these drugs point toward a root cause of metabolic disease? What inspired<\/a> their development in the first place?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It turns out your body produces natural versions of these drugs \u2013 also known as incretin hormones<\/a> \u2013 in your gut. It may not be surprising that nutrients in food<\/a> help regulate these hormones. But it may intrigue you to know that the trillions of microbes in your gut<\/a> are key for orchestrating this process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am a gastroenterologist<\/a>\u00a0at the University of Washington who studies how\u00a0food and your gut microbiome<\/a> affect health and disease. Here\u2019s an inside-out perspective on the role natural gut hormones and healthy food play in metabolism and weight loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A broken gut<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Specialized bacteria in your lower gut take the components of food you can\u2019t digest like fiber<\/a> and polyphenols<\/a> \u2013 the elements of plants that are removed in many processed foods \u2013 and transforms them into molecules that stimulate hormones to control your\u00a0appetite and metabolism<\/a>. These include GLP-1, a natural version of Wegovy and Ozempic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GLP-1<\/a>\u00a0and other hormones like\u00a0PYY<\/a>\u00a0help regulate blood sugar through the pancreas. They also tell your brain that you\u2019ve had enough to eat and your stomach and intestines to slow the movement of food along the digestive tract to allow for digestion. This system even has a name: the\u00a0colonic brake<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prior to modern processed foods, metabolic regulatory pathways were under the direction of a diverse healthy gut microbiome<\/a> that used these hormones to naturally regulate your metabolism and appetite. However, food processing<\/a>, aimed at improving shelf stability and enhancing taste, removes the bioactive molecules like fiber<\/a> and polyphenols<\/a> that help regulate this system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Removal of these key food components and the resulting decrease in gut microbiome diversity may be an important factor contributing to the rise in\u00a0obesity and diabetes<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"plant
Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons\/CC<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

A short track to metabolic health<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Wegovy and Ozempic reinvigorate the colonic brake downstream of food and microbes with molecules similar to GLP-1. Researchers have demonstrated their effectiveness at weight loss and blood sugar control<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mounjaro has gone a step further and combined GLP-1 with a second hormone analogue derived from the upper gut called GIP, and studies are showing this combination therapy to be even more effective at promoting weight loss<\/a> than GLP-1-only therapies like Wegovy and Ozempic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These drugs complement other measures like gastric bypass surgery<\/a> that are used in the most extreme cases of metabolic disease. These surgeries may in part work much like Wegovy and Ozempic<\/a> by bypassing digestion in segments of the gastrointestinal tract and bathing your gut microbes<\/a> in less digested food. This awakens the microbes to stimulate your gut cells to produce GLP-1<\/a> and PYY<\/a>, effectively regulating appetite and metabolism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many patients have seen significant improvements to not only their weight and blood glucose but also reductions in important cardiovascular outcomes like\u00a0strokes and heart attacks<\/a>.\u00a0Medical guidelines<\/a> support the use of new incretin-based medications like Wegovy, Ozempic and Mounjaro to manage the interrelated metabolic conditions of diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Considering the effects incretin-based medications have on the brain and cravings, medical researchers are also evaluating their potential to treat nonmetabolic conditions like\u00a0alcohol abuse<\/a>,\u00a0drug addiction<\/a> and depression<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A near-magic bullet \u2013 for the right folks<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Despite the success and prospect of these drugs to help populations that may benefit most from them, current\u00a0prescribing practices<\/a>\u00a0have raised some questions. Should people who are only a little overweight use these drugs? What are the risks of prescribing these drugs to\u00a0children and adolescents<\/a>\u00a0for lifelong weight management?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While incretin-based therapies seem close to magic bullets, they are not without gastrointestinal side effects like nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and constipation<\/a>. These symptoms are related to how the drugs work to slow the gastrointestinal tract. Other more severe, but rare, side effects include pancreatitis and irreversible gastroparesis<\/a>, or inflammation of the pancreas and stomach paralysis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These drugs can also lead to a\u00a0loss of healthy lean muscle mass<\/a>\u00a0in addition to fat, particularly in the absence of exercise. Significant\u00a0weight gain<\/a>\u00a0after stopping the drugs raises further questions about long-term effects<\/a>\u00a0and whether it\u2019s possible to transition back to using only lifestyle measures to manage weight.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"weight
Courtesy: ArtStudio Images via Canva<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

All roads lead to lifestyle<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Despite our greatest aspirations for quick fixes, it\u2019s very possible that a healthy lifestyle<\/a> remains the most important way to manage metabolic disease and overall health. This includes regular exercise, stress management, sleep, getting outdoors and a balanced diet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the majority of the population who don\u2019t yet have obesity or diabetes, restarting the gut\u2019s built-in appetite and metabolism control by reintroducing whole foods and awaking the gut microbiome may be the best approach to promote healthy metabolism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adding minimally processed foods back to your diet, and specifically those replete in fiber<\/a> and polyphenols<\/a> like flavonoids and carotenoids, can play an important and complementary role to help address the epidemic of obesity and metabolic disease at one of its deepest roots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from\u00a0The Conversation<\/a>\u00a0under a Creative Commons license. Read\u00a0the\u00a0original article<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The post How Food and the Gut Microbiome Can Stimulate Your Body’s ‘Natural Ozempic’<\/a> appeared first on Green Queen<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on Green Queen<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"natural<\/div>\n

<\/span> 4<\/span> Mins Read<\/span><\/span> By Christopher Damman, Associate Professor of Gastroenterology, School of Medicine, University of Washington Wegovy, Ozempic and Mounjaro\u00a0are weight loss and diabetes drugs that have made quite a splash in health news. They target regulatory pathways involved in both\u00a0obesity and diabetes\u00a0and are widely considered breakthroughs for weight loss and blood sugar control. But do these drugs [\u2026]<\/p>\n

The post How Food and the Gut Microbiome Can Stimulate Your Body\u2019s \u2018Natural Ozempic\u2019<\/a> appeared first on Green Queen<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1748,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15306,2088,1244,73487,5522],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1496409"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1748"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1496409"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1496409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1496720,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1496409\/revisions\/1496720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1496409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1496409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1496409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}