Episode 153: Asthma, Cystic Fibrosis, lung health, and the gut microbiome

If you are a parent of a child who has been diagnosed with a lung condition such as asthma, cystic fibrosis, or acute respiratory infections such as influenza, RSV, or the common cold then this episode is valuable for you. Research tells us that there is promise for these chronic lung conditions and that the gut microbiome plays a significant role in improving lung function. 

In this episode Jess shares:

• How dysbiosis in gut microbiota is associated with lung disorders and respiratory infections;
• More information on the lung-gut axis and how gut health is connected to lung function;
• Jess shares research from studies focusing on the gut-lung connection;
• Plus, the importance of short-chain fatty acids when it comes to nourishing the gut, lung health, immunity and more;
• Some of the specific respiratory and lung conditions we see in children and our strategies for improving symptoms including:
  • Hayfever and environmental allergies; 
  • Asthma; 
  • Cystic Fibrosis;
• The benefits of a fibre-rich diet for influencing the lungs;
• Specific strains of probiotic strains play a beneficial role in improving the gut-lung axis.

Episode Links:

• Episode 6: The Hygiene Hypothesis and Allergies in Kids;
• Research Paper: The lung–gut axis during viral respiratory infections: the impact of gut dysbiosis on secondary disease outcomes
• Research Paper: Diet, Microbiota and Gut-Lung Connection
• Research Paper: The Role of the Microbiome in Asthma: The Gut–Lung Axis

• Sign up for our FREE Immunity masterclass here.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:54

Welcome to the Natural Super Kids podcast, where you will discover practical strategies to inspire you to boost the health and nutrition of your kids. I'm Jessica Donovan, a qualified naturopath specialising in kids health, and I want to make it as easy as possible for you to raise healthy and happy kids. Let's get into it. Hello, hello, welcome back to the Natural Super Kids podcast. So happy to have you with me today as we explore what I think is a really fascinating topic of the connection between the gut and lung health, specifically the gut microbiome and the impact that that has on our children's and our adults lung health and lung disease. So this is going to be really interesting for you if you have a child who's been diagnosed with asthma. But also this is really relevant for those acute respiratory infections that we all get and our children all get. You know the influenza, the common cold, the RSV and, of course, you know the nastier viral infections like COVID. There's some really fascinating information. I've been diving into the research and I've tried my best to simplify things for you. On this podcast episode, we're also going to be talking a bit about things like pneumonia, cystic fibrosis, which, of course, is a genetic condition that affects the lungs and this isn't really relevant for kids but COPD, which is chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, otherwise known as emphysema. Now this one is close to my heart. My dad has been diagnosed with emphysema, you know, largely because he smoked his whole life, but his father passed away from emphysema as well. So there is definitely, you know, genetics at play with some of these conditions, for example, asthma. Of course, the COPD and cystic fibrosis is a genetic condition as well. But genetics doesn't kind of put a full stop at what we can do. Of course we cannot change our genes, but we can change, we can definitely still improve our health with the genes that we have and you know nutrition is super powerful at, you know, helping to change the way our genes are expressed and improving our health overall. And the gut microbiome has a big part to play in all of that. So you know I've been really interested diving into this research because of my personal family experience and you know it's been really hard to watch my dad he's turning 70 this year, you know really struggle with his quality of life because of his emphysema or COPD. It's now known as and you know it's a progressive disease. A typical kind of man of that generation didn't get it kind of looked at early enough and you know he does okay, like you wouldn't know it, looking at him. He's not attached to an oxygen tank or anything like that, but he can't do a lot without you know, without getting puffed out really easily. So that's been really confronting to watch, but also like looking at this research and doing some reading in this area. There is, there is promise for these, these chronic lung conditions as well. So what is important to know is that the gut microbiome and gut health in general has a big impact on lung health and lung disease, and dysbiosis or an imbalance in the gut microbiome is associated with lung disorders and respiratory infections. I'll just sort of talk about some examples and then we'll go into specific conditions and what we know from the research in these conditions. So you know, an example of how this dysbiosis can affect lung function and disorders and respiratory infections is a reduction in in the bifidobacteria in our gut microbiome and an increase in clostridia in the intestine are associated with asthma in early life. So I just find it fascinating again that you know these different species of bacteria within our gut, when reduced or increased, have a link with certain lung and respiratory conditions. Studies show that the depletion of certain species within our gut microbiome due to antibiotic usage can influence lung disease and allergic inflammation. For instance, studies on mouse models indicate that depletion of healthy gut bacteria from antibiotics leads to an increase in the susceptibility to influenza infection in the lungs. It is important to note that the gut-lung axis is a two-way street of communication. We have talked about this with the gut-brain axis. It is not just the gut talking to the lungs or the brain, it is the brain or the lungs talking to the gut as well. We also know that changes in the lung microbiome also influences the composition of the gut microbiome. For example, when someone has influenza, which is a virus that affects the respiratory tract, it leads to changes in the gut microbiome. These studies have been done on mice. It is not just that one-way communication what is happening in our lungs can also affect our gut, which is super fascinating. In years to come, maybe when our children are our age, there will be so many more solutions for lung health that are gut specific. That is really exciting. Something else really interesting to note is that the metabolites that are produced by gut bacteria, like short-chain fatty acids, which I will tell you a bit more about in a moment, move through the bloodstream and stimulate immune responses in lungs. Short-chain fatty acids are like magic. They are produced. The metabolites that are produced when the good bacteria in the gut gobble up the prebiotic fibers in the gut. When probiotics and prebiotics come together, they produce short-chain fatty acids. Those short-chain fatty acids can move through the bloodstream and influence immunity. They can influence lung health. They can also influence brain health. We want more of these short-chain fatty acids. The problem in the western world, the way we are living and eating, is that many, many, many kids are not getting enough of these prebiotic fibers in their diet. We can give them all the probiotic supplements we like and give them fermented foods, but if there's not enough of these prebiotic fibers, they're not producing these magical short-chain fatty acid molecules which are so super important for nourishing the gut, for immunity, for lung health and for brain health. More focus on prebiotic fibers is, I think, a good idea for most of us. There are lots of practical tips that I want to share. A lot of these are outlined within our free gut health ebook for kids. We've got a list of prebiotic fibers. I would recommend downloading our kids' gut health ebook. It's totally free. The link is in the show notes. But that's why the prebiotics are so important, because we need generally most children especially need more prebiotic fibers to be producing more of these short-chain fatty acids which are going to benefit their lung health and so many more aspects of their health as well. Let's dive into some of the specific respiratory and lung conditions that we see in children commonly. The first one I want to talk about is hay fever and also environmental allergies. We'll kind of lump these together. I'm talking about dust mite allergies to pollens, grasses, pet dander. What we need to know here is that imbalances in the gut microbiome contribute to allergic diseases, including hay fever. Allergic disease is on the rise. We want to be always thinking about the gut microbiome and bringing that back into balance, you know, to prevent allergies, but also to start to work on reducing the symptoms of allergy diseases as well, like hay fever. So emerging evidence suggests that dysregulation, dysbiosis in the gut microbiome can trigger systemic inflammation and also affect the immune response, ultimately affecting the respiratory system and exacerbating allergy symptoms. Now you know I really love to talk about the hygiene hypothesis when it comes to allergies and allergy disease hay fever, dust mite allergy really common in kids. And what we need to know here is, you know, there's no clear reason why allergy, the incidence of allergies, is on the rise. But what we do know, or one kind of key hypothesis when it comes to allergy, is the hygiene hypothesis and this sort of states, that early exposure to a diverse range of microbes is crucial at developing a healthy immune system that is less reactive. Because, you know, I think an easy way to understand allergies is to think of an a reactive immune system. The immune system is reacting to things in the environment that it shouldn't be reacting to. And when we can get that early life exposure for our kids to a whole range of different microbes, we know that the incidence of allergy is decreased. So, for example, children that grow up with pets and have exposure to different bacteria that way have a lower incidence of allergies. Children that grow up on farms, where they, you know, have more of that outdoor life, they have more of that exposure to microbes have a lower incidence of allergies. So I think the key here is, even if our kids are past that early life, we want to really be careful in terms of how hygiene obsessed we are, because exposure to different microbes is actually a good thing for our kids, developing immune systems, developing gut and also to reduce that incidence of allergy and atopic conditions. So that's something to note. Now I did do an episode on the hygiene hypothesis. I can't remember what number, it is off the top of my head but I will link to that in the show notes in case you're interested to know more about that topic. Okay, let's talk now about asthma, one of the most common, or I think probably the most common lung disease that we see in children Again, really common and it definitely is linked to allergy and known as an atopic condition. In many ways. We know from the research that children who are at risk of asthma show decreased abundance of some beneficial bacterial species within their gut, and the research also shows that these specific beneficial species of bacteria that are lacking in children with asthma have a protective effect on against airway inflammation and the condition of asthma in general. There is an association between lower numbers of certain beneficial bacteria in the gut microbiome and a higher risk of developing asthma in infants. The beneficial bacteria that has been shown in the research to be lacking in asthma patients are known to be butyrate producing. Now butyrate is one of those magical short chain fatty acids. So you know, you can kind of see the link developing here, which I think is really exciting. So if we can get even our kids that have already been diagnosed with asthma to be producing more of these short chain fatty acids by making sure they're good bacteria you know that there's plenty of good bacteria within their gut and that they're consuming plenty of prebiotic fibers in their diet or in supplement form. You know, particularly for fussy eaters, supplement form of prebiotics can make the world of difference. So we want to optimize that short chain fatty acid production in children with asthma by, you know, combining the probiotics in food or supplements and the prebiotics in food and supplements. And just a reminder, there's much more information about this in our kids' Gut Health ebook, which you can download via the link in the show notes. So this just affirms the importance of butyrate production by beneficial gut bacteria in maintaining that gut lung health. You know, the gut health and therefore the lung health. So I just think that's really interesting and really exciting because of course you know, asthma is a scary condition. If we've got kids with asthma it's a chronic condition. We can't necessarily cure the asthma but there are things that we can take responsibility for and things that we can do that can really start to improve and reduce the symptoms of asthma in our children. Okay, let's talk a little bit about cystic fibrosis now. So cystic fibrosis is a genetic condition where the both there's excess mucus production and in both the lungs and the gut, and you know cystic fibrosis sufferers often need lung transplants and do have a shorter lifespan. And you know lots of health challenges along the way. I've had a couple of clients with cystic fibrosis and you know they're often hospitalized and minor respiratory infections can be really dangerous for them. So feces samples from cystic fibrosis patients show reduced microbiome diversity and I've talked a lot about the benefits and the importance of that microbiome diversity as well as increased inflammatory markers in the intestine. And as compared to healthy children, children with cystic fibrosis have a reduced abundance of quite a few species of beneficial bacteria and, surprise, surprise, the reduction. You know the specific species that are reduced in the microbiomes of children with cystic fibrosis are butyrate producing species. So they are species that are really good at producing those short chain fatty acids which are or really important for nourishing the gut as well as nourishing the lungs. I mean, you know, among many other things. So we also know from the research that probiotics for cystic fibrosis patients shows improvements in respiratory symptoms as well as gastrointestinal clinical outcomes. So you know, this is a really good example of a genetic condition. It is not curable. There's nothing we can do to, you know, solve or cure this condition. But there are things that we can do to reduce symptoms and improve clinical outcomes in patients with cystic fibrosis, which I think is, you know, really exciting. And I know from the work that I've done with clients with cystic fibrosis. You know how much of an improvement and an impact working across, you know, their whole health but specifically working on gut health and the microbiome, you know, and how it's reduced the amount of, you know, respiratory infections that they have had and reduced hospitalization and reduced symptoms overall. So I know I talked a bit about that, you know that magic of the prebiotics and the probiotics coming together. I just want to elaborate on that for a little, for a moment, talking about fiber specifically. So let's, you know, let's forget about the prebiotic fibers specifically and talk more about fiber in general, which, of course, is lacking from our kids' diets in the Western world because they're eating more processed food, more refined food and less of those whole grain fiber foods, less fruits and vegetables that are high in fiber as well. But a fiber rich diet is super important for the gut microbiome, but also the lung microbiome as well, and fiber really influences the like lung immunity specifically. So dietary fiber helps to increase the short chain fatty acids in the blood, therefore providing protection against allergic inflammation in the lungs and lung disease in general. Fiber rich diets also are associated with better lung function and less risk of lung disorders, and the beneficial effects of fiber on lung function is, interestingly, clinically more significant in smokers. So even if we're doing, you know that, one thing that is known to be, you know, awful for our lungs smoking fiber can still help to improve lung function, even in smokers. Not that I'm, you know. I'm advocating that it's okay to continue smoking. Of course, reduce it like quitting smoking if you're an adult. Obviously this isn't applicable to kids. Well, I mean, you know we could do an episode on the vaping kind of epidemic in teenagers. I know my son who's 16, I think, like he says, that it seems like over half the kids his age are vaping, which is absolutely horrifying, and of course we know now that vaping is just as bad as smoking, if not worse, but even if even if someone is smoking, adding more fiber to their diet is still going to be beneficial, and high fiber diet leads to a reduction in mortality from respiratory disease as well. So I just find, you know, that simple tweak that we can make to our diet, particularly, I think this is empowering for people who have those genetic lung disorders cystic fibrosis, asthma. You know it's empowering to know that there's something simple that we can do to improve you know, improve health and reduce symptoms. So we know that. Well, you know, I think we've talked a bit about those more chronic lung conditions asthma and cystic fibrosis specifically. But also, you know it's important to note that the gut microbiome is vital in the lungs defense against acute respiratory infections, the common cold, influenza, rsv infections, which are really common in children as well. And there was, you know, quite a bit of research done on the role of the gut microbiome short chain fatty acids when it comes to the incidence of COVID and the severity of COVID as well. So there's, you know, more reasons to take care and put an emphasis on your family's microbiome and gut health. And I just want to finish by talking about some specific strains of probiotic species that are beneficial when it comes to respiratory health and lung health in general. As I mentioned in last week's episode, pronunciation of probiotic strains is not my strong point I made a bit of a joke about it last week but just bear with me and I'll try and pronounce these as well as possible. We will also make sure these are mentioned in the show notes if you want to come and have a look. So lactobacillus salivarius LS01, it was one that I also mentioned last week when it comes to the gut skin connection has been shown to improve, you know, have that beneficial effect on respiratory function and lung function. Bifidobacterium brevet B632 has also has also got some promising research behind it in that gut lung axis and, of course, my favorite, the lactobacillus ramnosus LGG. So these are strains of probiotic species that we commonly prescribe for children with hay fever, with asthma, that we see often here at Natural Super Kids, and ones that you really do want to focus on if you're wanting that specific action of improving lung health and respiratory health. As I talked about earlier, we've also got a free Kids Gut Health ebook. I would encourage you to download it. Not just download it, but read it and implement, you know, these general gut building strategies for your kids, as, as you've heard me talk about before. You know gut health really is the foundation of our kids health overall. Today we've talked about that specific kind of gut lung connection or gut lung access. It's been quite information heavy this episode, so hopefully it has been informative for you. I, you know, really do, did try and simplify things as much as possible, but you know, really the key point to take away is that the gut microbiome is an important part of lung health for our kids. It can really help to improve lung health and reduce lung disease and the symptoms of lung and respiratory issues in children. So I hope you've enjoyed this episode and I will be back in your ears with a new episode next week. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. Head on over to our website, naturalsuperkidscom for the show notes for this episode as well as a whole heap of inspiration to help you raise healthy and happy kids. I'll see you next week.