Warren Buffett apparently once told Lebron James, “always follow your gut”. We would like to explore this phrase from a different lense today - the lense of your intestinal microbiota. What if “always follow your gut” took on the meaning of always trying to make your intestinal microbes happy in order to optimize your athletic performance?
Yes, you read that correctly, it turns out that microbes aren’t only responsible for making coffee, cheese, and bread but they have also been implicated in your success during your sport. Therefore, today we’re taking a closer look at what science says about how your microbes are influencing your marathon time.
Why should athletes care about their intestinal microbes?
Physical activity can increase the diversity of microbes in your intestinal microbiome, and these microbes actually have a positive impact on how we perform (reviewed in Hughes and Holscher, 2021). However, there are a number of factors that dictate to what extent exercise changes the intestinal microbiota. These include things like diet, type of exercise, age, and gender (reviewed in Hughes and Holscher, 2021). For example, cardio was shown to have a rapid impact on the intestinal microbial community, while resistance training (weight lifting) did not (Bycura et al 2019; reviewed in Hughes and Holscher, 2021). Concerning age, it has been suggested that elderly people that exercise tend to experience the negative impacts of aging less often, possibly because their intestinal microbiota are reaping the benefits of exercise (Shin et al. 2019). More generally speaking, physical activity increases the number of short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) that microbes produce in the intestine. These SCFAs are linked to a number of benefits in the intestinal tract such as epithelial cell health and immune system functioning (Blaak et al. 2020); and can be used by various cells in the body as fuel during exercise (reviewed in Hughes and Holscher, 2021).
Sugar, burgers, and gut microbes
As we’ve discussed in other articles, the microbes in your intestine play a huge role in helping you digest your food, and by doing so they provide your body with a number of beneficial compounds. So it’s not surprising to hear that when you change your diet you are also changing the way the microbes in your gut work. Of course, exercise and diet go hand and hand. However, professional athletes are not following strict diets just to avoid heart disease and other health problems, they are trying to optimize their performance (reviewed in Hughes and Holscher, 2021). Therefore, by manipulating their diet and exercise routines, athletes may be able to ‘supercharge’ their intestinal microbiota for an additional boost on the field.
Therefore, by manipulating their diet and exercise routines, athletes may be able to ‘supercharge’ their intestinal microbiota for an additional boost on the field.
But what does the science say about how athletes should eat and how these dietary manipulations change an athlete's intestinal microbial community? Well, it’s complicated. Most studies have found that an excess of any specific food group such as proteins, fats, carbohydrates, and fiber has a negative impact on athletic performance and the number of beneficial compounds produced by your intestinal microbiota (reviewed in Hughes and Holscher, 2021).
Just to highlight one of the food groups discussed by Hughes and Holscher, excess protein (a food group used by many athletes to increase strength) has been linked to a number of negative impacts on intestinal health. For example, common supplements containing taurine or branched chain amino acids (BCAAs) may increase the risk of colorectal cancer (Wolf et al 2020; reviewed in Hughes and Holscher, 2021). Overall, the review article we’re discussing in today’s post suggests that popular protein supplements need to be investigated further to fully understand whether or not we should be using them to increase our performance in the gym.
Take Home message
Microbes help break down the food that we eat, thereby giving us nutrients to dish out our best athletic performance. So it’s clear that by changing our diet we can also change our output in the gym. However, don’t forget that different types of exercise (cardio vs weight lifting) have also been shown to change the microbes in our intestine. This means that if you want to optimize your performance you have to keep in mind that your intestinal microbiota can act as a positive or negative feedback loop. Put good things into it (healthy diet and exercise), get good things out (top athletic performance/happy gut microbes). Put bad things in (poor diet and no exercise), and get bad things out (unbalanced intestinal microbiota).
It is important to note that research into how microbes can improve athletic performance is still fairly new and there are many unknowns. For example, we still do not have a definitive answer to the long term impacts of protein supplements on intestinal health. That said, we may start seeing gyms and major sports teams turning to intestinal microbiome studies of their members/players in order to achieve their athletic goals in the near future.
References:
Hughes RL and Holscher HD, Fueling Gut Microbes: A Review of the Interaction between Diet, Exercise, and the Gut Microbiota in Athletes, Advances in Nutrition, Volume 12, Issue 6, November 2021, Pages 2190–2215, https://doi.org/10.1093/advances/nmab077
Blaak EE, Canfora EE, Theis S, Frost G, Groen AK, Mithieux G, Nauta A, Scott K, Stahl B, van Harsselaar J, van Tol R, Vaughan EE, Verbeke K. Short chain fatty acids in human gut and metabolic health. Benef Microbes. 2020 Sep 1;11(5):411-455. doi: 10.3920/BM2020.0057. Epub 2020 Aug 31. PMID: 32865024.
Shin HE, Kwak SE, Lee JH, Zhang D, Bae JH, Song W. Exercise, the Gut Microbiome, and Frailty. Ann Geriatr Med Res. 2019;23(3):105-114. doi:10.4235/agmr.19.0014
Bycura D, Santos AC, Shiffer A, Kyman S, Winfree K, Sutliffe J, Pearson T, Sonderegger D, Cope E, Caporaso JG. Impact of different exercise modalities on the human gut microbiome. Sports. 2021;9(2):14.
Wolf PG, Gaskins HR, Ridlon JM, Freels S, Hamm A, Goldberg S, Petrilli P, Schering T, Vergis S, Gomez-Perez S et al. Effects of taurocholic acid metabolism by gut bacteria: a controlled feeding trial in adult African American subjects at elevated risk for colorectal cancer. Contemp Clin Trials Comm. 2020;19:100611.
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