Dr. Rhonda Patrick

What I will say is that what we do know is that there are certain foods that you can eat that are known to be beneficial to promote the growth of healthy probiotic types of bacteria.

and decrease the growth of more of the pathogenic type.

Yeah, broccoli is great.

I would say fermentable types of fiber are really good.

So those are the types of fiber that are found in mushrooms, like beta-glucans, oats, berries, the skins of fruits.

These are the fermentable, soluble type of fiber.

Yeah, so you eat a blueberry.

The fermentable fiber is in the skin of the fruit.

Believe it or not, vegetables are mostly the insoluble type of fiber.

That's the kind of fiber that's important for moving stuff through the system.

You want to get stuff out, which is also important.

But the fermentable type of fiber is the stuff that's actually viscous, and it's fermented by bacteria.

Yeah.

and this this actually allows the beneficial type of bacteria the probiotic type of bacteria to out compete some of the pathogenic type of bacteria so you're having you know a better gut microbiome which is going to basically help you lower inflammation when you eat food because it helps lower that you know the gut from opening up and releasing lipopolysaccharide into your blood system it's called the post prandial inflammatory response it's after you eat a meal inflammation that's why people feel sleepy after a meal inflammation is generated inflammation

makes you feel sleepy because it's taking energy away from your brain.

And it's also increasing these cytokines that make you sleepy.

So you want to lower that post-inflammatory response after a meal.

So that would be, again, you want to basically have the right types of foods.

Exercise also, by the way, helps strengthen the gut so that it's less likely to be what's called leaky gut, right?

That permeability of the gut is another thing to do.