What is the gut microbiome?

Trillions of microscopic organisms—or microbes—call your body home.

Crazy, right?

What’s even more, about 95 percent of those microbes live in your gut.

This is where the name “gut microbiome” (or “microbiome” for short) comes from. It refers to the place in your gut where all of these ever-so-necessary microbes (bacteria, viruses, and fungi, etc) reside. Some of these microbes are beneficial to our health, but others are detrimental. The balance between the two is key when it comes to maintaining your “gut health.”

Each of our microbiomes, especially the gut microbiota, is as unique as our fingerprints (or snowflakes!).

In fact, even the way we were born had an impact on our microbiome, since bacteria taken in during birth changes your body’s microbial composition. Whether or not we were breastfed as infants can also have an impact; babies that are breastfed often have different microbiomes than those that are formula fed.

But taking care of your microbiome is just as much “nurture” as it is “nature.” Everything we do—what we eat, the air we breathe, substances we put on our body, the antibiotics and supplements we take—affects our microbiome in a unique way.
It’s up to us to create the healthiest microbiome for ourselves.

Researchers are just now learning just how important the human microbiome is. The microscopic organisms that exist on and throughout our bodies literally number in the trillions and can affect our health and well-being.

It's important to understand exactly what the human microbiome consists of, how what we eat can substantially alter it, and the many ways it affects our emotional and physical health.

Why is your gut microbiome important?

Scientists are actively studying the relationship between our gut microbiome and our health. Recent studies suggest that these tiny microbes are very helpful—essential even—to our health and happiness.

Because 70% of your immune cells originate in your gut, you could say your gut microbiome plays an especially important role in overall wellness.

The bacteria in your gut microbiome educates and trains your immune system, and produce essential vitamins like B12, folate, and vitamin K.

Hello, health!

Even your mood can be influenced by your gut microbiome. 90% of your neurotransmitters including GABA, Dopamine, and serotonin are produced in the gut.

A healthy microbe is essential to your feelings of happiness.

How can your gut health help you lose weight?

Your gut microbes play a critical role in how much you weigh.

Good gut bacteria can impact your metabolism, can influence how much you eat, can affect the type of foods you crave, and can change how much fat your body stores (and where it stores it).

Gut microbes are also vital for digestion and help us break down nutrients to fuel our bodies. Diet also plays a key role here. Certain foods are harder for these microbes to break down, meaning your digestion slows down, which can eventually lead to weight gain. Sticking to a healthy diet will feed these microbes what they need to keep things running smoothly.

And gut microbes produce essential vitamins like B12, folate, and vitamin K.

What affects your gut microbiome?

While gut microbiota usually remains fairly stable, there are some external forces that can alter the microbes in your digestive tract.

Radically changing your diet can alter your gut bacteria rather quickly.

Probiotic-rich foods—like yogurt, apple cider vinegar, miso, and sauerkraut—can influence the microbiota in your intestinal tract, helping to provide the good bacteria needed for a healthy gut.

On the contrary, the foods we eat can produce negative results in our gut health as well.

Processed foods, sugar, gluten, and alcohol can interfere with a healthy microbial balance and can compromise intestinal health. Eliminating, or at least limiting, these foods and beverages helps to promote a healthy microbiome.

How to improve your gut microbiome

The gut microbiome can seem like a complex concept, but having a solid understanding of it can be key to achieving true health and happiness. Feel free to use this infographic as a reference point to help you know what your gut microbiome is and how you can care for it properly.

References

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3426293/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2792171/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3709439/
http://hmpdacc.org/
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/microbiome/
https://genomemedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13073-016-0307-y
http://www.prodigest.eu/en/technology/shime-and-m-shime
https://depts.washington.edu/ceeh/downloads/FF_Microbiome.pdf
http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002533
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17943116