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As I sit to write this, it occurs to me that today is a big deal for two reasons. One is St. Patrick’s Day and I’m not wearing green. But then I’m not drinking green beer either, which I have been known to do. Even had the green teeth to prove it.
The other is the start of the NCAA basketball tournaments. Also, I would bet, the start of major league gambling for the rest of the week. Basketball has its brackets. Football has the spread sheet.
I did a lot of gambling, but never on sports. Probably because I don’t care to watch them. Husker football is the only one.
If there is absolutely nothing but sports on the TV, I watch golf. It really looks easy until you try it. Not my game. Bowling was more up my alley. Excuse the pun.
Men’s fashion seems to have taken on a new look. Perhaps recycled is a better term. Back in the old days Saturday night was “open” night in most small towns. Stores, etc. stayed open late into the evening. Every one to some extent dressed up a little bit for the occasion. “Put on your best bib and tucker” was the phrase my mom used. And I have no idea what a “tucker” is.
The farmers especially would be wearing their best bib overalls along with a white shirt and their Sunday suit jacket. Usually a fedora instead of their everyday straw hats. Might add these gentlemen removed those hats when speaking to the ladies.
Today, at least on TV, the men who used to wear suits now wear jeans for slacks. Along with their suit jackets and ties. Sometimes even a vest. Makes me wonder. Either go dressy or casual, but mixing them just doesn’t seem right. As long as I’m wondering: Why do late night show men keep buttoning and un-buttoning their suit coat jackets? If they are standing up, they are playing with their coat buttons.
In women’s fashions, ugly shoes seem to take center stage. Since my wardrobe comes from WalMart or the second-hand store, you know I am up on my fashion statements. Back when I was a kid, we girls made our own high heels. You lay a beer can on the side and smashed your shoe heel in. It would stick in the can and walla, high heels. Yes, it was beer cans. Soda, or pop, as we called it came in bottles. Most beer did, too, but there were a few brands in cans.
Here’s a true pop bottle story. Back in the germ-free days, several of us would pass one bottle back and forth. Remember it was a creme soda at a football game. About halfway down we thought something was in it. Turned out to be a mouse. We pep club girls were out behind the bleachers throwing up for all we were worth. We still shared the bottle after that, but you can bet it wasn’t creme soda!
But a good argument can be made for shipping some of your poo to a lab. Your feces can reveal a lot about your microbiome—the community of microbial organisms that lives on your skin and inside your nose, mouth, and especially gut.
You have 100 trillion of these critters, and an unhealthy biome can cause a range of problems from acne to anxiety, says George Weinstock, Ph.D., of the Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine.
Don’t think of these microbes as freeloaders who move in and wreak havoc like a bad roommate.
They’re part of you. There are 10 of them for every one of your human cells, and together they make up the “superorganism” that is you, says Weinstock.
You pilot the ship, but your microbial friends—tiny warriors with names like Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes—man the turrets. They offer first-line defenses against pathogen invasions and signal your immune system when more antibodies are needed for backup.
“Every part of your body has a symbiotic relationship with your microorganisms,” Weinstock says.
Related: The Better Man Project—2,000+ Awesome Tips on How to Live Your Healthiest Life
Diversity is critical: Generally speaking, a wider range of microbes creates stronger protection from chronic health conditions and autoimmune diseases.
Depression, type 1 diabetes, obesity, even cancer—your risk of developing any of these maladies drops when your microbiome is as lush as a rain forest, he says.
To see how normal dudes fare, we created a contest: Two volunteers swabbed some used TP and sent the samples to a lab, uBiome (tests start at $89, ubiome.com), to learn whose gut was more diverse.
Volunteer one: Adam Smith, 24, with a history of acne and gastrointestinal problems. He controls both by avoiding grains, gluten, and sugar.
Volunteer two: Craig Merrick, 40, a gym owner who eats a healthy, well-rounded diet and works out hard four days a week. His biggest health threat is stress, which can cause inflammation and throw off gut bacteria.
About a month later, the results were in: Both guys had above-average biodiversity scores. But Smith had less biodiversity than Merrick—predictable, given Smith’s problems.
“If not for his diet changes,” which affect gut health, “his microbiome would probably have been much worse,” says Weinstock.
And both guys could still probably improve: A 2014 study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports that the average microbiome of an American adult is about a third less diverse than those of our ancestors and people in less developed countries.
Related: 3 Things You Don’t Want to Find In Your Poop
That may be partly due to our heavily processed diet and the overuse of antibiotics that wipe out good bacteria along with the bad.
There’s still a lot we don’t understand about the microbiome, says Weinstock. But we’re learning more all the time.
We already know several ways to improve its biodiversity. Hack yours with these tips and you’ll see an uptick in your immune function and overall health.
1. Eat Lots of Fiber
Gut bacteria love fiber: Researchers at NYU have linked an increased intake of fiber from beans, fruits, and vegetables with a greater abundance of both Actinobacteria (which produce natural antibiotics) and Clostridia, a class of microorganisms that’s been linked to decreased risk of colorectal cancer.
Related: 10 Weird Reasons You Can’t Poop
The average fiber intake in the study was 14 grams a day; you’d be wise to aim for almost three times that, which amounts to just under 3 cups of black beans.
2. Workout to Help Your Gut
You can bolster your biome at the gym. Male pro athletes have significantly more diverse gut bacteria and lower levels of inflammation than less active and sedentary men, a recent study in the journal Gut reports.
The researchers aren’t exactly sure how exercise diversifies a person’s microbiome, but the effect may be from a combination of breaking a sweat and eating for performance.
Related: 6 Ways Your Health Suffers When You Stop Working Out
The athletes consumed 100 more grams of protein a day than the control group did.
3. Eat Whole Grains
The Paleo crowd talks about carbohydrates like they’re poison.
Pay no attention! In a recent study from the University of Nebraska, healthy adults who consumed 60 grams of whole grain cereal every day experienced significant improvements in metabolism, immune function, and microbial diversity.
Yes, fiber certainly played a role in those results, but the study authors suggest that whole grains might confer additional anti-inflammatory benefits.
4. Don’t Take Too Many Antibiotics
The current generation of prescription antibiotics are broad-spectrum—in other words, they target good and bad microbes indiscriminately.
Recent studies indicate that this can disrupt your microbiome within three days, and Swedish scientists say it can take up to four years to restore the balance.
No, you can’t always avoid antibiotics, but you can ask your doctor for the safest option.
For example, a Dutch study found that amoxicillin has no effect on microbial composition. (You shouldn’t pop the pills for these 5 Conditions You Shouldn’t Take Antibiotics For, either.)
5. Drinks Lots Of Coffee
Coffee’s laxative effect may signal that there’s something positive going on in your digestive tract.
Swiss scientists found that drinking three cups of java per day could bolster your gut’s levels of Bifidobacterium.
Related: Why Coffee Makes You Poop
They speculate that these beneficial microbes help prevent bad bacteria from moving in and taking up residency in your intestinal tract.
Credit probably goes to the slew of beneficial compounds that exist naturally in coffee, such as chlorogenic acids. So go grab another cup.
