When everybody refers to gut microbiome what they’re really referring to is types of micro-organisms that live in your gut (human gastrointestinal tract). Gut microbiome has the ability to influence a persons’ fitness and health as microbiome encodes over three million genes and produces thousands of metabolites. Having a diverse microbiome (an array of different types/strains of microbiome) in your gut is beneficial as different types of microbiome produce different metabolites/end products. When somebody has a decreased microbiome diversity it can cause issues such as obesity, gastro-intestinal diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease and coeliac disease. It can also lead to cancer, type 1 and type 2 diabetes, cognitive decline/Alzheimer’s, cardiovascular disease, skin issues such as eczema, autoimmune diseases and even depression; as microbiome has the ability to communicate to all over the body through feedback loops (such as the gut-brain axis). The gut can talk to your body and cause issues everywhere! Next blog post; #series2 i will talk more in depth on factors that decrease and increase microbiome diversity.
Stay healthy and happy,
Balancedbeings x x
References Please note I have left them in link form so you can easily click and access the studies I used for this post.