Why you should test your gut microbiome

Author: Anita Tait

21 April 2022 Education

In the bustling downtown metropolis of your digestive system, trillions of microbes jostle to feed off what you eat. These microbes, which mostly consist of bacteria, or “gut bugs”, combined with their genetic material, are your gut microbiome. Every type of gut bug has a distinct job, and they interact with each other to produce compounds that impact your body and health.

Knowing what each of these bacteria can do and how they function in your microbiome can uncover key insights into your own health and well-being. It’s truly fascinating to learn about the impact that the gut can have on your body and how you can help influence the positive outputs from those bugs.

It’s easier than ever now to test your gut microbiome, but why should you? What sort of information will you be able to discover? How will you benefit? And, ultimately, is it worth the investment?

Why test your gut microbiome?

No one else has the same makeup of microorganisms living in your gut. Taking a gut microbiome test will allow you to discover just how unique your gut microbiome is to you. Some of the learnings you may get from your report could help you to make significant changes in your life and approach to health.

Testing your gut microbiome is a personal decision but one with the potential to influence your overall well-being. Some people are searching for possible answers to recurring gut health issues, whereas others are simply looking at ways to be healthier.

The mounting evidence about the gut microbiome shows it is linked with countless areas of health and disease. So, whatever your reason, a gut microbiome report will give you information to better understand how your unique microbes may be influencing your health and ways to optimise the composition of bugs living in your gut.

What will you discover?

The microbial community in your gut can perform a wide range of metabolic functions, from digesting fibre and protein, to producing thousands of substances that can interact with our immune, metabolic and nervous systems, all the way to transforming the medicines we take.

Using a metagenomic gut microbiome test, you will learn about your microbiome’s:

  • microbial diversity level
  • potential to breakdown nutrients
  • potential to produce substances associated with health
  • unique composition of the microbial species.

This information can either be further explained by our trained Microbiome Coaches or one of our Microba Informed Practitioners. They will be able to provide you with the key insights from a report and guide you on the next possible steps to a healthier you.

How will you benefit?

This is going to vary from person to person and will depend on your reasons for getting tested.

However, when you understand your microbial community, you can:

Take positive steps to reinforce existing, ‘positive’ bacteria
You can take steps to change your diet, or other lifestyle factors, to promote the growth of certain beneficial species, especially if your report shows you have a low number of the bugs that produce short-chain fatty acids.

Keep your gut microbiome in balance
You want to make sure your gut microbiome has an even balance of species and does not have a high potential to produce substances that can promote inflammation or are associated with some health concerns. If your gut microbiome starts to show an overgrowth of a species or a high potential to produce substances associated with poor health, you can introduce changes to your diet and lifestyle to address the impact of these substances and aim to bring your gut microbiome back into a healthy balance.

Is it worth the investment?

Investing in your health should be something that you take seriously. This shouldn’t just be a journey of curiosity for you – it should be about discovering a long-term approach to improving your health.

A gut microbiome test is an investment in your health. Given the microbiome can have such a strong influence on your body’s function, taking the journey into improving your microbiome health will pay off for years to come.

Metagenomic analysis of your gut microbiome is the most advanced method to test your gut bugs. Incredibly, the information that comes from a simple stool swab delivers billions of DNA bases consisting of typically 600,000 microbial genes, and reports on over 5,000 gut bugs.

Our team of passionate scientists love nothing more than diving in to make sense of this enormous amount of microbiome data and deliver your unique microbiome report. Improving people’s lives through microbiome health is what we live for.

Once you receive your report, you are not alone with the information. Your Microbiome Coach will answer any questions you have about your report and guide you on tangible steps to making improvements to your diet and lifestyle based on your unique microbiome.

If you feel you would like more support from there, your Microbiome Coach will refer you to our informed practitioners that can continue to support you on your health journey.

Your gut bugs are there to help you. Make sure you’re treating them right by understanding who they are, how many of them are present, and what foods will help the good bugs flourish.

To start your gut microbiome journey to improved gut health and overall wellbeing, you can order an Insight™ test.

This microbiome test is not intended to be used to diagnose or treat medical conditions. A full disclaimer is available here