Do prebiotics, probiotics or postbiotics help restore balance to the gut microbiome?Joshua Earle/UnSplash
I spend a lot of time writing about biomedical sciences, and I have a weird and annoying tendency to develop symptoms of whatever condition I’m looking into. When I was working on a piece about chronic sinusitis, I developed a persistent snuffle. A recent article on hearing loss made me sure I was going deaf. When my subject was snoring, I snored louder and longer than ever. Maybe I’ve discovered a previously unknown form of hypochondria.
The symptoms usually disappear once I’ve moved on, but in one case they haven’t. About a year ago, I wrote a piece about chronic constipation. Enough said, I think.
My diet hasn’t changed. I drink plenty of water and exercise regularly. So why have I developed constipation? It could be my age. One of the archetypal signs of getting older is a condition called dysbiosis, or disruption of the gut microbiome. Throughout most of adult life this remains remarkably stable, but as we enter later life it often changes – usually for the worse. One of the possible results is constipation. But that could be the least of my worries.
Dysbiosis is hard to define precisely, as our gut microbiomes are highly individualised, shaped by our diets, environment and medical history over decades. But as an approximation, it is a shift away from cooperative and beneficial microbial species towards more pathogenic ones. Many studies have found that ageing is typically associated with a loss of overall microbial biodiversity, especially among the “friendly” bacteria that ferment dietary fibre to produce anti-inflammatory molecules. Their places are taken by more aggressive groups such as Enterobacteriaceae – which includes many harmless species, but also E. coli, Salmonella and Shigella.
