Dr. Michael Greger

Healthy poop from an exercising mouse or from a marathon mouse or a mighty mouse versus the frail mouse.

So you can actually change.

They're eating the same.

They're doing the exact same, but they just have a different stool composition.

And how do you get those good gut bugs?

You feed them the right food.

And that's the prebiotics.

What are good gut bacteria you eat?

A lot of people are thinking probiotics.

They're thinking the actual bacteria themselves, the acidophilus, the bifidobacteria.

Those are the good gut bugs.

But if you just take those pills, the reason you don't have those good gut bugs in the first place is because you're not feeding them very well.

So you can try to populate your gut with as many good bugs as you want.

They're going to die off if you continue to starve them, continue to starve your microbial self.

Whereas if you just ate the right foods, the good gut bugs are fiber feeders.

If you eat the right foods, then your good bugs will be fruitful and multiply all on their own and do all the work for you.

And that work is creating these so-called postbiotics, which are there

byproducts of microbial metabolism of these good foods, like butyrate and acetate, get absorbed through the colon wall into our bloodstream, circulate throughout our bodies, even cross the blood-brain barrier, have effects on our mental health, improve our immunity, so dramatically decrease inflammation.

You can prevent asthma attacks just by feeding people some beans.

I mean, it's absolutely remarkable.