Originally posted on https://jimmyjoy.com/blogs/jimmy-joy/prebiotics-in-plenny-shake-v2-1.
Wait, what? What’s a prebiotic? Is it a new sexual orientation? Am I a prebiotic?
Let us introduce you to the trillions of tiny little creatures living in your belly, the so-called gut microbiota? [1]. Feel itchy all of a sudden? No need to worry, these creatures are not nibbling on your insides, they just chop up the leftover food that we cannot digest.
You see: after we eat, our body breaks down the food into tiny components, pieces small enough to be absorbed by the so-called epithelial cells on the wall of our bowels, after which they’re passed into our bloodstream. We have a whole bunch of mechanisms to slash up the food into nutrients ourselves, but we need the help from our little gut gang to break it down, so that we can absorb these nutrients. The gut gang has the ultimate set of knives and scissors to chop up your food [2].
Another mechanism they help us with is preventing harmful bacteria from settling in our bowels by leaving no room for them and by ratting them out to the immune system [2]. So yeah, it’s like an eighties mob movie in your gut.
The relationship you have with your gut microbiota is symbiotic, like a relationship. It’s a balance between…