Immune Health Wellness&

Q&A WITH ABBEY SHARP

Mediaplanet sat down with registered dietician and founder of Abbey's Kitchen Inc., Abbey Sharp to discuss the importance of the gut-immune connection and how adjusting your diet can support strong immune health.

How can altering your diet improve immune health? What advice would you give someone looking to make lifestyle changes to support their gut and immune health?

A healthy gut microbiome requires a wide range of different beneficial bacteria that help to support a healthy immune system. To help support a healthy diverse microbiome, we need to think about probiotics (the actual good “bugs”) and prebiotics (the food for the bacteria). We can also discuss postbiotics, which are the waste products left behind when your body digests probiotics and prebiotics (i.e. Vitamin K, amino acids and antimicrobial peptides). Probiotics are found in fermented foods like yogurt, kefir, miso, sauerkraut and pickles, and prebiotics are found in fibre-rich foods like fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, seeds and whole grains. Therefore, the best diet to support microbiome diversity with the “good bugs” that help support a healthy immune system is a predominantly plant-based diet. This doesn’t necessarily mean we need to eliminate all animal products, rather we want to focus on getting in a fibre-rich diet made up with a wide variety of plants. Most North Americans don’t get enough fibre, so aiming for that goal of 25-38 grams per day can make a huge difference for our gut.