Edit diet recommendations based on gut microbiota

<div>Taking probiotics can influence the microbiota, but this colonisation stops within weeks of stopping the specific supplements – thus suggesting that the health benefit occurs whilst you are taking the probiotic and increasing the relative number of these microorganisms within your gut but not because you are actually permanently altering the microbiota composition.  </div> <div> </div> <div>Even the most extreme efforts to recolonise the gut microbiota using stool (poop / faeces) transplanted from a healthy donor, which is a recognised successful treatment for very serious gut infections, cannot guarantee to modify the resulting gut microbiota permanently. Although this treatment does appear to cure the gut infection, nobody fully understands why.</div> <div> </div> <div><strong>5.</strong> There is not yet any scientific basis for deriving diet recommendations based on gut microbiota.</div> <div>So, in practice what does this mean and what can we do, given that having a healthy microbiome may have important health implications?</div> <div> </div> <div>There is developing evidence that assessment of the microbiome may help to understand any interpersonal variability in response to diet – whether this is in helping individuals to manage their weight or as a treatment to a condition such as IBS. This is the cornerstone belief behind personalised nutrition but one thing the scientists are in agreement over is that the evidence is not yet clear.</div> <div> </div> <div>This lack of evidence does not prevent companies who undertake (expensive) microbiome tests from making dietary recommendations however! </div> <div> </div> <div>The current microbiome tests may provide a lot of interesting data but there are not yet any meaningful conclusions that can be inferred from these data and we have not yet reached the stage where microbiome based diagnostics should be a routine part of clinical care. It may well satisfy your curiosity to know some of the specifics about your own personal gut microbes but it will not necessarily improve your health.</div> <div> </div> <div>This does not however mean that we cannot strive to generally support a healthy and diverse microbiome since this has been associated with an improvement in health and well-being.</div> <div> </div> <div><strong>Current best practice advice suggests that a healthy microbiome is supported by:</strong></div> <div>A plant-based diet </div> <div>Eating lots of different plants (>30/ week) </div> <div>Managing stress </div> <div>Regular amounts of physical exercise </div> <div>Not being sedentary</div> <div>Getting good quality sleep (7-9 hours)</div> <div>Minimising use of antibiotics unless there is a good clinical indication that these are essential (whilst taking a probiotic to limit the impact of the antibiotic on the gut flora)</div> <div>Moderate use of substances such as smoking and alcohol</div>

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