We continue with our rubric which, in a short period of time, has become extremely popular on the pages of our magazine. Its moderator is Dr Jean Pierre SPINOSA, a specialist in anti-age medicine, obstetrician, gynecologist and surgeon, whose scientific interest focuses, primarily, on understanding biochemistry and mechanisms of cancer and other diseases, as well as nutritional and functional medicine. Dr Jean Pierre SPINOSA is an author and co-author of various patents, articles and books. This time we shall talk about the microbiota or the intestinal flora.

– Why are we going to talk about bacteria?

Because their role is vital. There are good and bad bacteria in our body, and the good bacteria inhibit the bad ones. We cannot totally eliminate bad bacteria from our body, because they get inside with food. But we can keep them in check.

– How does food interact with bacteria?

1. After we have eaten a food, it transforms into tiny pieces, which breed bacteria. Some food breeds mainly good bacteria (vegetables, fish etc) and other food breeds bad bacteria. All these bacteria secret substances that get into the bloodstream and through complex chemical reactions influence the metabolism, and mostly the immune system and inflammatory processes. It’s easy to understand that «you are what you eat».

Our intestines were devised by Nature as selectively permeable, which means that in their healthy and balanced condition (without dysbacteriosis) the intestines walls allow to pass through only elementary particles, the so called monomers, into which the food is broken down: amino acids from proteins, fatty acids from fat and monosaccharides from carbohydrates. Many studies show that it is possible to prevent many diseases (even cancer and autoimmune diseases).

2. Let’s now see what happens in our intestines after we have eaten too many carbohydrates (for example, many pizzas so much loved by us and bad bacteria). Being the favourite food of bad bacteria, it facilitates their rapid growth and, consequently, secreting huge amounts of metabolites, that affect our body, through the bloodstream. This can lead to the development of inflammatory processes, allergies, autoimmune diseases, some types of diabetes as well as such diseases of civilization as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases (see our article «A million years before our pizza», where we explained the alimentary evolution of humans), and even cancers. Apart from that, our pizza and pathogenic bacteria, that have multiplied thanks to it, provoke dysbacteriosis. This condition destroys the mucous membrane of the intestine walls through which not only monomers but also much bigger pieces of undigested food and bacteria can now pass. This stuff will be identified as alien bodies by our immune system and, consequently, protective reactions of our immune system follow. This results in immediate increase of inflammation in the body and exacerbation and onset of some diseases, provoked by it. All of this could be significantly reduced or even avoided just by eating healthy food.

– So how can we rectify this situation?

There is the so called «shape memory effect». Even if we change our eating habits, the alimentary system still remembers what was there before. And it cannot immediately go back to normal.

There is a relation between the eating habit and the microbiota (we used to call it the gut flora). The microbiota is an independent and fundamental organ located in our body. And we should keep this organ in a good working condition. It is our general, or rather our boss. Even our brain cannot function properly when the microbiota is dysfunctional. It’s like breathing: we must breathe every day, so we have to take care of that organ all our life, every day.

– What are bacteria? Do we know a lot about these little creatures? Is there a place in our bodies without bacteria? Despite the fact that bacteria surround us, we know very little about them!

– If we look in terms of quantity at what we consist of, it’ll turn out that our body is 10% human cells and 90% bacteria cells. There are over 100 thousand billion bacteria living in each of us. That means that I am not quite sure if we are humans, because 90% – is a lot! If we compare the sizes, they are impressing: human cell has a length of 50 millionth of a meter, and a bacterium – 1 millionth of a meter. It’s quite natural that we can’t see a human cell with our naked eye, all the more so – a bacterium. But, nevertheless, this incredibly small organism has been around on our planet for 4 billion years! Let me remind you, that our planet is only 5 billion years old.

– Do you mean to say that bacteria were the first to appear on our planet – much earlier than ourselves?

– Of course! And I have a simple scheme to illustrate this process. If you imagine that Earth came into being, say, on 1 January, then first bacteria appeared on St. Valentine’s Day or 14 February. These were anaerobic bacteria – the ones that could live without oxygen, since there was no oxygen in the atmosphere at that moment. The first aerobic bacteria came on 1 June. The first cells with a nucleus inside, eucaryotes, containing the source of human life, appeared on 15 October. Dinosaurs came on 10 December. People came on 31 December, at about 4 in the afternoon. And Jesus was born 3 seconds before the New Year…

So, bacteria were not only the first to appear on Earth but they will live on this planet long after us. So, we have to respect them! My great – great – great grandmother was a bacterium. And so was yours…

– Apparently, bacteria are very quick to multiply?

– Quick is not a word. From one bacterium after 24 hours we can get thousand billion bacteria! That means that we have to realize, whether we like it or not, that we are hybrids – bacterial hybrids rather than human ones.

– Where do bacteria come from?

– There are different theories, and some of them say that they came from space: 5 billion years ago they just dropped on Earth with meteorites. If you follow that theory, then we turn out to be aliens. And we have come from space to colonize the Earth!

– How many bacteria are living side by side with us?

– There are about 14–15 billion bacteria in our body. The greatest number of bacteria is in our gut. And our relations with these bacteria can be divided into 3 types.

• y neutral bacteria that are using our body but do not do good to us, aka parasites;
• y pathogenic bacteria that cause harm to us;
• y symbiotic bacteria that bring benefit and help us(win-win).

Simply speaking, there are various organs in our bodies that perform certain functions: the kidneys purify blood, the brain thinks, the liver detoxifies our body. And the bacterial world that is inside us should also be considered a fundamental and very important organ. Nowa- days, we call it the microbiota or the intestinal flora.

I’ll give you an example: if the brain weighs 1,400 gram, the liver has roughly the same weight and, then the microbiota or the intestinal flora weighs 2 kg. That means there are 2 kg of bacteria in our body! Most of them live in the intestine. There are some bacteria in the mouth, less bacteria in the stomach but this place is not sterile. The further down the alimentary tract we go, the higher is the number of bacteria. The highest number of them is in the lower segments of the intestine – in its last inches. One gram of human excrements has 1,000 billion bacte- ria (!) and we … around 300 grams of poo per day.

– But not all bacteria are the same?

– The thing is that we cannot destroy only bad bacteria and keep good ones – for example, when we wash our hands. However, we need good bacteria: they are in our body to protect us. Imagine that bad bacteria are try- ing to eat us. We cannot protect ourselves against these conquerors. The only opportunity is to have good bacteria at hand. Hence, we need to respectfully treat our good bacteria and keep an eye on what we feed them with.

– Studying bacteria must be difficult?

– As of today, we are just starting to understand the bacterial composition of our body, we are just discovering things which we haven’t known before. How can we proceed in learning about the microbiota? The first method is to analyze the bacterial DNA, and this is called metagenomics. The second method, which is in my view more interesting – it is to study what bacteria produce. Because the effect of bacteria, be it good or bad, emerges mainly due to the substances that they produce. We study this through chemical reactions that bacteria enable.

So bacterial background is different in different people?

– There are over 2,000 different types of bacteria. Like, for example, in the supermarket there are over 2,000 articles of various foodstuffs, but when I go shopping, I cannot buy more than 200 of them. And it is these 200 foodstuffs that I’ll put in my fridge. Same with bacteria: there are over 200 types of bacteria that make you different from other people. In the same way as we have different blood type groups, fingerprints, we have a personalized type of bacterial flora. Bacterial prints of every person are so different that this fact is worthy of being patented. However, there is a nuance: fingerprints do not change with the time (now some studies show that some heavy cancer treatment can change fingerprints) but bacterial prints can.

– What does it depend on?

– Believe it or not but our intestine is «outside» our body. It’s a tunnel going from our mouth to the other end. Certain things must cross the barrier to go inside the body but others (for example bacteria) must remain inside the tunnel and be expelled. A damaged intestine will allow dangerous content to enter the body. So, our intestine lining must be healthy and our food and the intestinal flora (Microbiote) are fundamental for maintaining this health. The intestinal flora modifies depending on many factors: age, food that you eat, place where you live etc. Allergies and autoimmune diseases are much more common in people having «western microbiota», with a less important diversity of bacteria. Additionally, the current intestinal flora is predominantly a reflection of what happened at birth. Newly born child, who is said to be sterile (now we have doubts about the sterility dogma of newborns) will be infected or colonized depending on how he or she was born. If it was a natural birth, then the child will get his or her mother’s genital and intestinal bacteria. If the baby was born by Cesarean section, he or she will then get more of the bacteria that were around at his or her birth: all sorts of skin bacteria transferred onto him as a result of contact with hands of medical staff. Let’s immediately say the baby’s future will be different if his or her mom has a good microbiote or not.

It turned out quite recently: what we have considered sterile in mother’s womb, in fact, is not so. With mechanisms that are not completely understood, a transfer of bacteria is facilitated from mother’s intestines into ba- by’s intestines through placenta. There are also bacteria in mother’s milk and this is very good that they are there. The first day’s milk (colostrum) in terms of its bacterial composition is different from the milk produced later on. A breast nourished baby has a different intestinal flora than a formula nourished baby. So, Nature is something phenomenal! We will never be able to substitute breast milk with formula milk, because nobody will add bacteria to it nor knows exactly what type of bacteria to add. Only by the age of 3 years the intestinal flora of the child will reach its final equilibrium. So, women must breastfeed their babies at least to the age of one or two years and if possible 3.

– So, are antibiotics dangerous?

– By all means, antibiotics are clearly fantastic and useful substances, able to treat infectious diseases, but at the same time we are damaging one of our vital organs, our microbiota. You understand now that there are good bacteria that control the condition of the body and maintain the equilibrium. We must take care of these bacteria. And if we kill them, the door is open to a lot of diseases. Unfortunately, the most vulnerable bacteria are the friendly ones. For example, we can see that women develop mycosis after antibiotic treatments. Because we have killed the good bacteria that protect against proliferation of Candida. But there is much more: diseases as tremendous as Alzheimer are now attributed by scientists to dysfunctional microbi- ota. Harmful bacteria start multiplying very fast since nobody controls them.

Can you imagine that our bacteria not only produce vitamins or lipids but there are other absolutely phenomenal things that we can’t even imagine. Practically nobody knows that intestinal bacteria are constantly «connected» to the organs of vision and the articulation. They also «talk» with our fat (lipids). And depend- ing on the type of bacteria, that are in the intestines, lipids will function absolutely differently. Very few people know that bacteria also talk to our muscles – with similar consequences. They communicate with other organs, too, for example, with the liver and the cardio-vascular system. Many cardio-vascular problems derive from intestinal diseases. Another little known fact is that intestinal microbiota is the training ground for our immune system (For those interested, read about the «hygiene hypothesis»). Medicine is now understanding that allergies and autoimmune diseases (Crohn disease, other inflam- matory intestinal diseases, multiple sclerosis, poly- arthritis) begin very often in our intestine. But what is extraordinary is that our intestinal bacteria keep «sending e-mails» to our brain all day long!

– Can we say that our character and our emotions are also effects of our intestinal bacteria?

– Exactly! There are about 500 million, that is half a billion, neurofibers that connect the brain to the intestines. There are many expressions in French that reflect on this condition of the body – that is the connection between the behavior and the condition of human body, and the intestines, in particular. Our mood, our emotions, our psychological stress, our character depend on the type of bacteria we have in our intestine.

– Nowadays there is a lot of talk about probiotics and their benefit for the body. Is it really so?

– You have to differentiate the terms probiotics and prebiotics: bacteria are as such probiotics, and what we feed them with are prebiotics. These are things that we, humans, cannot digest but bacteria can cope with and use it as their main food. Consequently, when we eat for ourselves, we should never forget that we should also feed our bacteria because they do some work for us. That’s why we have to eat prebiotics every day! Prebiotics are essentially vegetal fibers. It must be done every day because every 36 hours 100 percent of our intestinal cells are completely renewed. That means we have 50 billion intestinal cells that die, we excrete them and replace with new ones. The surface area of our intestines is about one football pitch: 700 square meters.

Prebiotics are artichoke, garden radish, bananas, asparagus, cabbage, turnip, sweet potato, garlic and onion, chicory. Other healthy substances found in olive oil, in wild berries, in wine, in pomegranate are polyphenols. Turmeric and all the foodstuffs that contain Omega 3 acids are also essential for the having healthy good bacteria. Thus, it is necessary to avoid anything that kills useful bacteria: pesticides or chlorine in tap water. And beware of sodas. They are unhealthy. Unfortunately, they are sometimes cheap- er than water. Meat and sugar are also harmful since these foodstuffs are favorites of bad bacteria.

It is also important to chew food properly. Intestines are a step-by-step work. It’s like you assemble a car or a house. It is impossible to make a roof if there is no foundation. Your intestines work in the same way. If you don’t chew properly, it will mean that the food will not properly processed in the stomach, consequently, it cannot be further processed in the intestines. And this is a feast for bad bacteria. Research confirms that some diseases depend on good tooth condition. In old people’s home activities aimed at correction of tooth problems help to avoid many diseases.

– Does that mean that all that we eat, thanks to our bacteria, will be transformed in our intestines?

– And this is even more important than what we eat: understanding what our bacteria will transform this into.

In some foods (eggs, for example) there is a substance called phosphatidylcholine. After being processed by bad bacteria in the intestine, it turns into a substance called trimethylamine (TMA). From the intestines this substance is brought to the liver where it turns into trimethylamine-N- oxide (ТМАО). And this substance is very toxic for vascular walls! It is also toxic for kidneys, as was demonstrated in a study of 2015 and 2016.

Thus, we can say that in some cases, myocardial infarction risk does not directly depend on what you have eaten but rather on what this food has been transformed into by your bad bacteria.

One and the same food will affect your body differently. It’ll have positive influence if good bacteria prevail, and negative – if bad bacteria predominate.

– Does it also relate to such disease as colon cancer?

Medical research shows that people who eat more fibers and less meat can rely on a up to 15-fold decrease of colon cancer.

The association between diet and colon cancer is so strong that there is unfortunately a «formula» to be almost sure to develop colon cancer. It is like this: a lot of meat, little fiber, much sugar and pesticides.

Such disease as obesity also depends on the condition of bacterial flora. If you transplant bacterial flora (yes, you read well, we can now transplant poo) from a person with normal constitution to a person with obesity, then obesity can be got rid of. It may sound ridiculous today, but one of most important investments that a person can make today – is to make «a bank of excrements» – like a sperm bank. Because the number of people who suffer from obesity keeps growing.

Science is moving forward very fast helping us to stay healthy and active for many years. And bacteria play an important role in that – they are the long livers on this planet!

Fixing the intestine (and mainly the microbiota) can be the solution to many diseases, from Alzheimer, through cancer, cardiovascular diseases and others. I am convinced during more than 15 years already that all these diseases are linked with mitochondrial dysfunction. A recent article published in Frontiers in Physiology proves a link and mutual influence between microbiota and mitochondria. In our next article I propose to talk about this tiny energy plan of our body.

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