Eating for a healthy gut
Since all the food you eat passes through your colon, it only makes sense that eating healthy foods will promote a healthy intestinal system. Internal medicine and public health nutrition specialist Kumara Sidhartha, MD, MPH, believes good nutrition is the key to a healthy gastrointestinal tract. And a wholesome, unprocessed plant-based diet is his number one recommendation.
A wholesome plant-based diet works on several different levels, he said. One of the important factors is the effect fiber has on colon health.
“In order to have enough healthy gut bacteria, we need a lot of dietary fiber,” he said. “That’s why unprocessed foods like whole grains, leafy greens, beans, legumes and vegetables are going to provide the dietary fiber that is important to have enough healthy bacteria.”
Then, once you have a healthy gut, it is important to keep it healthy by eating foods that produce short-chain fatty acids, like a fatty acid called butyrate. Dr. Sidhartha, who is the chief health equity and wellness officer for CCHC, compared butyrate to oxygen for colon cells because it helps gut cells to thrive. The best sources for butyrate production are beans and leafy greens, but especially beans.
“The other element is making sure that the cells in the colon don’t have any breaks in their DNA, because that’s what leads to cancer in a patient,” he said. “So, for example, there is a gene called p53 and that gene is a protective gene. It protects against colon cancer. But when the gene gets broken by food choices higher in white and red meats, it exposes us to colon cancer and that can be damaging. In science, such a break in the gene is called mutation.”
Free radicals can also break a cell’s DNA. In contrast to animal protein, unprocessed plant-based foods contain antioxidants that protect against the damage of free radicals. So, another way to protect the p53 gene is to make sure you are eating enough colorful vegetables and fruits.
“The color pigments are very, very important to make sure this DNA, these protective genes, don’t get broken down,” Dr. Sidhartha said.
Colorful fruits and vegetables also contain phytochemicals, which are naturally occurring chemicals that also protect us from cancer and disease.
It is also important to protect the lining of the intestines from damage. Any foods that are high in fats or sugar can injure the lining of the intestines. That lining is important to ensure we don’t have long-term inflammation, which is another cause of cancer.
