Gut microbiome; health and immunity -some reflections (Part I)

The gut microbiome is a fascinating topic and thankfully more and more research is being completed within this area. Back in 2014 I attended a Nutrition conference in Glasgow and first heard about some interesting research regarding the role of our gut microbiome in influencing our health and immunity. The chap talking at this conference said that 'Our gut bacteria have their own circadian rhythm' (a mechanism that times daily events like our sleep-wake cycle, temperature, hormone secretion etc.) which at the time I thought was amazing! How incredible they could even know that!?
Our little gut bacteria have particular functions which occur during the day and night, and get busy with them based on environmental cues (light /dark etc). But what I found interesting was that if we alter our rhythm due to lack of sleep for example (something I know a lot about!) it can influence our health, immune system and metabolism.
>> if we are altering our sleep patterns...(shift work/feeding babies etc,) it often means we are altering our eating patterns>>which means that the gut microbiota are receiving food at times which don’t correspond to their own schedule >> which can affect the breakdown and absorption of nutrients by the gut bacteria>>possibly then having an adverse effect on our health and immunity….(type 2 diabetes as one example) with 70% of our immune system residing in our gut….it certainly pays to be kind to our gut microbiota!
But how can we be kind to our gut?...I reflect on that in part II.