The Gut Microbiome Benefits Of Intermittent Fasting You Need To Know, From A Functional Medicine Practitioner

And if your gut health is less than optimal, chances are you've tried almost every tool to improve it, like sipping bone broth or prioritizing a high-quality probiotic.* But there's one tool you may not have considered.

Digestion uses a surprising amount of energy—10% of our body's total energy, in fact. Everything from chewing to saliva production to swallowing takes energy. That's not even counting the production of stomach acid and the various enzymes and hormones released from your pancreas to break down macronutrients and regulate hunger signals.

And it doesn't stop there. Your body also produces water, enzymes, base salts, mucus, and bile that total about 2 gallons of liquid—all of which enter the large intestine. While all this is happening, your gastrointestinal tract has to churn the food and make rhythmic muscular contractions to push the food through your intestines, so the particles can absorb into your bloodstream and distribute throughout your body.

The gut microbiome has its own circadian rhythm1, and just like the ocean tides, different colonies of bacteria ebb and flow throughout the day. Certain populations of bacteria increase depending on whether we are awake, sleeping, or eating food.

Underlying metabolic health issues often start in the gut. For example, some research suggests that those who are overweight tend to have lower gut microbiome diversity and gut imbalance2.

The good news is that your gut microbiome starts to respond to fasting and food changes extremely quickly. You might expect it to take weeks or years to change the makeup of your GI microbiota, but research shows that it can start to happen within a few hours and you may even observe significant changes in just a few days of fasting.