Probiotics are key for digestion and gut health, but they can also help improve the health of our brains. In this video, neurologist David Perlmutter, MD, explains why having good gut bacteria is so important, and which foods have the most impact.
What an exciting time we live in now when we understand that the gut bacteria that outnumber our cells 10 to 1 have a powerful role to play in brain health. Gut bacteria involve the set point of inflammation, with inflammation being the corner stone of just about everything you don't want to get including things like Alzheimers and Parkinson's and multiple sclerosis, and even depression, ADHD and autism.
This is all dictated to a large degree by the bacteria that live within the intestine, who knew. It really gives us a very powerful leverage point in looking for example at the value of probiotics not just from a digestive perspective but as they relate to the brain. So there is very big push these days to try to identify what is the very best nutritional supplement as it relates to a probiotic? And I'd say let's take a step back and look at what we have consumed over years, decades, hundreds of years in terms of giving our bodies good bacteria.
And these include the fermented foods which are still very popular today things like Kimchi and Sauerkraut and yogurt, foods that are fermented drinking Kombucha for example a fermented beverage. These foods and beverages contain good bacteria, Kimchi contain something called lactobacillus plantarum a very important probiotic bacteria that tends to heal the leaky gut.
And make no mistake about it a leaky gut translates to increased inflammation in your body and again that's a cornerstone of just about everything bad that can happen to your brain.
David Perlmutter, MD, FACN, ABIHM is a board-certified Neurologist, best-selling author of Grain Brain, The Surprising Truth About Wheat, Carbs and Sugar - Your Brain’s Silent Killers, and Fellow of the American College of Nutrition.
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