An important energy source for your body
Gut bacteria have various functions that are beneficial for humans.
Gut flora:
- Promotes cell growth.
- Prevents the proliferation of harmful bacteria, the formation of inflammation in the intestinal mucosa, the passage of toxic products from the intestines into the blood, and thus the formation of skin diseases.
- Preemptively eliminates pathogenic microorganisms that would otherwise reach the liver and increase its burden.
- Helps break down and absorb foods that cannot otherwise be digested. Without gut flora, the human body cannot digest and use some of the carbohydrates it takes in. This is because the enzymes needed to digest polysaccharides are found only in certain gut bacteria. Bacteria convert the carbohydrates they ferment into short-chain fatty acids.
Short-chain fatty acids also:
- Form an important source of energy for the body
- Increase the intestine's water absorption capacity
- Reduce the numbers of certain harmful bacteria
- Promote the proliferation of both intestinal cells and beneficial bacteria
- Help the body absorb calcium, magnesium and iron
- Control the growth, proliferation and development of intestinal epithelial cells
- Another effect of fermentation is that, by producing fatty acids, it increases the acidity of the environment, preventing the proliferation of harmful organisms that cannot tolerate it.
- Gut flora, through proteolytic fermentation in the intestine, enables the breakdown of undigested proteins such as collagen and elastin.
- Bacteria also produce vitamin K2 and enable its absorption by the body.
- Another important effect of gut flora is preventing species that could harm the host from establishing themselves in the intestines. Since harmful bacteria such as yeasts and Clostridium difficile cannot compete with beneficial bacteria, their numbers remain at a harmless level.
- By presenting the structures of harmful bacteria taken in through the intestines to the body, it strengthens a person's immune system and protects against disease. By stimulating lymphatic tissues located near the intestinal mucosa, it enables them to produce antibodies against pathogens. Bacteria play a key role both in the early development and in the lifelong functioning of the immune system in the intestinal mucosa.
- It ensures that the immune system responds only to pathogens. As soon as a baby is born, bacteria settle into the digestive system. The first bacteria to establish themselves influence the immune system's response, ensuring they are recognized as belonging to the host. Consequently, the first bacteria determine the composition of the gut flora that will exist throughout a person's life.
- A healthy gut flora prevents allergies: Gut flora prevents the immune system from overreacting to harmless antigens. Gut flora bacteria shape the immune system as early as infancy. If these bacteria are deficient at the appropriate time, the resulting underdeveloped immune system may overreact to antigens in childhood and later in life, which we call an allergic reaction. However, flora disruption can be a consequence of allergies as well as a cause.
Gut flora has a list of functions that could be described at even greater length. The intestines are by no means merely an excretory organ. Healthy absorption and healthy excretion are very important for the body's quality of life and all vital functions. Since the flora living in the mucosa serves as an organ of nutrition, immunity and detoxification, a healthy intestinal system and flora are necessary for a healthy body.
You can find more information on this and similar topics in my books "Güzel, Mutlu ve Sağlıklı," "Neden Yanlış Yaşıyoruz," "Hayatı Keşfet" and "Duygusal Beyin Bağırsak."