What are Postbiotics? What do they have to do with gut health?
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Photo by Kindel Media from Pexels
By: Mark Sisson
Gut health is an enormous topic that just got even bigger.
You know about probiotics: bacteria that provide benefits to our gut, metabolic, and/or overall health when eaten. Some probiotic bacteria colonize our guts—they take up residence in our digestive tract and provide lasting effects. Some probiotic bacteria are transients—they visit and impart benefits and interact with our guts and its inhabitants, but do not stay.
You also know about prebiotics: non-digestible food components that nourish and provide food for the bacteria living in our guts. Prebiotics include fermentable plant fibers, resistant starch, “animal fiber,” and certain polyphenols.
This is standard stuff. Entire store shelves are devoted to fermented dairy, pickles, sauerkraut, supplements, kombucha, and other sources of probiotics. You’ve probably got all sorts of strange gums and fibers and powders that serve as prebiotic substrate for gut bugs. Gut health is mainstream.
But you probably don’t know about postbiotics.
What Are Postbiotics?
Postbiotics are the products created by our gut bacteria after they consume prebiotics, interact with incoming food components, and interact with other bacteria. They include:
Short-chain fatty acids like butyrate, propionate, and acetate
Vitamins like inositol, vitamin K2, and certain B vitamins
Neurotransmitters like GABA and serotonin
And then there are the likely innumerable postbiotic effects, metabolites, and outcomes that we have yet to elucidate and quantify. In other words, postbiotics—the actions, products, and interactions of probiotic bacteria—are the entire reason we’re so interested in probiotics and prebiotics.
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