Why high-fibre mushrooms are the perfect microbiome fuel

Our gut microbiome is key to vibrant, healthy living, and more mushrooms in your diet can support your gut flora and bacteria in different ways.

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in the US defines the microbiome as “the collection of all microbes, such as bacteria, fungi, viruses, and their genes, that naturally live on our bodies and inside us.”

While these microbes are small, they contribute in big ways to human health and wellness, protecting us against pathogens, helping our immune system develop, and they enable us to digest food to produce energy.

READ MORE | All You Need To Know About Gut Health

Supporting these life-giving bugs

How do we help these life-giving bugs do their rather significant job?

According to the UK-based personal health programme ZOE, “your diet is a key factor in determining which microbes are in your gut.”

Professor Tim Spector, a co-founder of ZOE and a leading microbiome researcher at King’s College London, stresses that “there really is no one-size-fits-all approach to nurturing the beneficial microbes in the gut because we all have unique gut microbiomes.”

His tips to support your microbiome include:

• Eat more plant-based foods – and that definitely includes mushrooms – because gut microbes feed on fibre. From spices, through oils to coffee and greens and even dark chocolate, 30 different plants per week is the number recommended by Professor Spector for good gut health.
• Eat plants of different colours. “Not only are colourful plant foods rich in fibre, they also contain loads of polyphenols, which ‘good’ gut microbes love,” explains the prof. 
• Try fermented foods, including sauerkraut, kimchi and yoghurt. These need to be true ferments and not vinegar-based pickles to be of benefit.
• Leave gaps between eating to give your gut bacteria time to rest and restore the gut lining – so, it may be best to cut down on snacking.
• Eat fewer ultra-processed foods, which can be high in sugar, which does not support gut health, and low in fibre, which is needed for optimal gut health.

READ MORE | Give Your Heart Health A Boost With Mushrooms

The magic is mushrooms

Mushrooms high in fibre, making them perfect microbiome fuel. In this regard, a 2017 scientific review in the US National Library of Medicine concluded that “mushrooms act as prebiotics to stimulate the growth of gut microbiota, conferring health benefits to the host”

In addition, a 2023 Chinese study published in the US National Library of Medicine found that “mushroom polysaccharides could promote human health by regulating gut microbiota, increasing the production of short-chain fatty acids, improving intestinal mucosal barrier, regulating lipid metabolism and activating specific signalling pathways.”

“Mushroom polysaccharides,” it explained, “are a kind of biological macromolecule extracted from the fruiting body, mycelium or fermentation liquid of edible fungi.”

These “polysaccharides are an important active ingredient of mushrooms, which are not absorbed by the gastrointestinal tract and can only be fermented by gut microbiota in the large intestine.

Mushroom polysaccharides can also specifically change the composition and abundance of gut microbiota and maintain intestinal microecological balance.”

READ MORE | Give Your Heart Health A Boost With Mushrooms

Health benefits from mushrooms

These findings apply to the white button, portabellini and large portabello mushrooms easily found in South African supermarkets.

In reality, the health benefits of common mushrooms are many and varied. A 2021 review of the bioactive compounds with health benefits of edible mushrooms hailed them as being “well recognised for their nutritional importance such as high protein, low fat, and low energy contents.”

They are also known to be “rich in minerals such as iron, phosphorus, as well as in vitamins like riboflavin, thiamine, ergosterol, niacin and ascorbic acid.

Furthermore, they contain bioactive constituents like secondary metabolites (terpenoids, acids, alkaloids, sesquiterpenes, polyphenolic compounds, lactones, sterols, nucleotide analogues, vitamins, and metal chelating agents) and polysaccharides, chiefly β-glucans and glycoproteins.

“Due to the occurrence of biologically active substances, mushrooms can serve as hepatoprotective, immune-potentiating, anti-cancer, anti-viral, and hypocholesterolemic agents. They have great potential to prevent cardiovascular diseases due to their low fat and high fibre contents, as well as being foremost sources of natural antioxidants useful in reducing oxidative damages.”

And all you need to do to access that gut- and overall health-bettering brilliance is decide how you’d most like to enjoy fabulously moreish mushrooms for dinner tonight.