Anti-inflammatory Health Benefits of Prebiotics

Chances are you’ve heard about probiotics: when it comes to gut health, you can’t get far into the conversation without them being brought up. But what about prebiotics? What are they? What role do they play in gut and preventative health?

Prebiotics vs. Probiotics: What’s The Difference?

While they sound similar, and while both are beneficial for gut health, prebiotics and probiotics are not the same. They each have different roles in the body. The easiest way to differentiate between them is that probiotics are the bacteria that make up the gut microbiome, and prebiotics are the foods that those bacteria eat.

The gut microbiome is incredibly diverse, and it can be influenced by diet, stress, medication, gut motility, antibiotics and other pathogens. In order to maintain a healthy gut, it’s essential to have more of the healthy probiotics than of the pathogenic bacteria. One way to ensure this is to make sure that we’re actively supporting the right bacteria with the foods we consume.

So in other words, if you want a healthy gut microbiome, you need to keep the probiotic bacteria well-fed.

To further explain this, probiotics are considered to be the “good” bacteria that live in the digestive tract, particularly the large intestine, and we typically consume them from fermented foods–like yoghurt, kimchi, sauerkraut or miso–or from supplements–like probiotics, including our own Bio-Fermented Turmeric which is fermented with 8 strains of probiotic cultures.

Probiotics have been well-researched to have a variety of health benefits, including improved digestion, immune function, and even mental health (1, 2, 3). These gut bacteria also play an influential role in blood sugar regulation and inflammation (4,5). But more recently, the conversation has turned to prebiotics and the unique role they have in supporting overall health. After all, without prebiotics, probiotics aren’t able to properly do their job.

What Are Prebiotics?

Prebiotics actually come from non-digestible carbohydrates, like dietary fiber, that the human body is unable to break down. Instead, these foods are degraded and digested by the gut microbiota and used as a primary source of survival energy. Through this degradation process, the beneficial bacteria ferment the prebiotic fiber, forming short-chain fatty acids (6).

Again, the easiest way to think about this is that the probiotic bacteria eat the prebiotics, and then create short-chain fatty acids, as a by-product.

Short-chain fatty acids (SCFA) are the main source of nutrition for cells in the colon, but they also provide their own health benefits. They have the ability to alter the gut environment and improve digestive health, by lowering the pH and impacting the population of gut bacteria that reside there. The short-chain fatty acid, butyrate, in particular, has been found to have anti-inflammatory benefits, and is able to enhance intestinal barrier function and immunity (7).

We know that short-chain fatty acids are impressive to say the least. And how do you get these SCFAs? That’s right–prebiotics.

Health Benefits of Prebiotics + Short-Chain Fatty Acids

They Support Gut Health

Prebiotics and short-chain fatty acids may help to support digestive health by reducing bowel inflammation. Butyrate, for example, has been shown to improve symptoms of Inflammatory Bowel Diseases–like Crohn’s and Ulcerative Colitis–where levels of beneficial gut bacteria are often low (8).

One study found that supplementing with butyrate-producing bacteria also helped to enhance the integrity of the intestinal barrier, which is critical for proper nutrient absorption and immune function (9).

They Can Support Immune Function

Both animal and human studies have shown that prebiotics are able to improve immune function by increasing the beneficial bacteria in the gut and decreasing levels of harmful pathogenic bacteria (6). The prebiotic mannose, for example, is able to bind to Salmonella and reduce its ability to colonize in the gut (10).

In one study, a supplement that included giving prebiotic fibers to adults over the age of 65 was found to improve immune function and reduce symptoms of an upper respiratory tract infection (11).

They Can Reduce Inflammation

As mentioned earlier, prebiotics have been shown to have anti-inflammatory properties in the gut by altering the composition of the microbiome and enhancing the immune function of the mucosal gut barrier (12).

But it isn’t just the gut that benefits from reduced inflammation: consuming prebiotics can help to lower the risk of cardiovascular disease by reducing inflammatory elements, like triglycerides. One study in which healthy individuals were given the prebiotic fiber inulin daily for three weeks, saw lower triglycerides levels and liver lipogenesis, supporting the use of prebiotic fibers in reducing the risk of atherosclerosis (13).

They Can Improve Mental Health + Cognition

Something that may surprise you, is the role that prebiotics play in mental health and cognition, but this relationship actually makes a lot of sense: the gut is connected to the nervous system through the “gut-brain axis”, which is essentially a two-way communication channel between the central nervous system and the enteric nervous system of the gut.

One study in which 73 healthy adults consumed 4g of non-starch polysaccharides, found that the prebiotics were able to help reduce mental fatigue, both by improving recognition and working memory (14). Another similar study found that individuals who consumed saccharides before completing standardized tests, saw significant beneficial effects of supplementation (15).

There’s also some research to indicate that prebiotics may be beneficial in improving mood and wellbeing, perhaps due to the relationship between gut bacteria and stress: stress can negatively impact the gut microbiome, but gut bacteria can also release toxins and neurohormones that can alter mood and upregulate a stress response (16). Inulin, for example, was found to improve mood, and decrease indigestion and hunger (17).

They Can Support Skin health

Another interesting role of prebiotics is their influence in maintaining skin health: the consumption of prebiotics has been shown to reduce both the development and the severity of skin allergies, like dermatitis (18). Galacto-oligosaccharides in particular may help to improve the skin barrier (19), although more research is needed.

How To Get Them In Your Diet

So now that we know how powerful prebiotics can be, where do we get them?

The best way to consume prebiotics is in the form of fiber-rich whole foods, like vegetables, fruits, grains, honey and legumes.

Here are some of the more common prebiotics to know of, and where to find them:

• Inulin: found in vegetables like onions, garlic, leeks, asparagus, sweet potatos and artichokes.

• Fructooligosaccharides: found in bananas, chicory, onions and asparagus.

• Galacto-oligosaccharides: found in dairy products, beans and root vegetables.

• Resistant Starch: found in starchy green bananas, and potatoes or rice that have been cooked and then cooled.

• Pectin: found in pears, apples, plums and oranges.

Key Takeaways

Gut health is the cornerstone of overall well being, which makes supporting the gut all the more important. Not only does this mean consuming healthy probiotics, but it also means eating a diverse diet, filled with lots of fibre-rich foods, to give these probiotics the fuel they need to thrive.

Supplementing with probiotics–or adding more fermented foods to your diet–can be a great way to support a healthy gut microbiome. But you want to make sure the results are long-lasting, and that’s where prebiotics really shine.

By focusing on a diverse diet with lots of plant foods, you can reduce inflammation, enhance immune function and support your general health.