In your gut, right this minute, there are 40 trillion microbial cells and up to 1,000 different microbial species! In fact, the cells in your gut bacteria approximate the total number of your own cells. If you were to go by cell count alone, you would be only about half human.
The microbiome is an ecosystem of trillions of bacteria living inside your body. Bacteria that have their own DNA, with about 200 times the number of genes that you have. We don’t yet know what most of these microbial genes do, but this is what makes it an exciting new area of research.
What we do know about the microbiome is that it has a major effect on weight, health, and blood sugar responses. Your gut microbiome exists in your digestive tract and help you digest food – it’s influenced by what you eat and in turn affects your response to different meals. Which is why it matters so much.
The other thing that makes the microbiome so important for personalized nutrition, is that everyone’s is unique. Through their research, Prof. Segal & Dr. Elinav were able to establish a connection between the unique microbiome and unique postmeal blood sugar responses.
They were able to integrate all the data they collected during their research, into an algorithm that can predict someone’s blood sugar response to certain foods based on their personal parameters and microbiome signature. With this amazing algorithm they were able to successfully predict and prescribe personalized diets to anyone!