Men's Health (UK)

02 ONE DAY... BUT NOT YET EATING PLANS TAILORED TO YOUR GUT MICROBIOME

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If you knew precisely which foods your body responded to best, you could really take control of your health and weight. That’s the premise behind new kits that test your microbiome and make personalis­ed eating recommenda­tions based on the results.

There’s some scientific cred to the idea that our individual microbial makeups may have something to do with why we all respond differentl­y to what we eat – for instance, some people manage carbs better than fats, others the reverse. But there’s probably not quite enough to base your eating plan on it. We don’t yet know exactly what the microbiome’s influence on weight is, and even if we did, it’s not clear by how much we can change our microbes, and which ones we’d need to change, to better support our ideal body compositio­n, says Dr Gabrielle Fundaro, author of The

Science Of Gut Health. In a nutshell,

‘the data isn’t there yet’, she says.

But that hasn’t stopped multiple companies from rolling out gut-testing and diet kits. One such company, Zoe, says its programme can help followers lose weight, gain energy and feel less hungry. Another, DayTwo, claims its test gives you a ‘fingerprin­t’ of your gut, which can determine your optimal diet for blood-sugar control. But a snapshot is just that – your microbiome is telling you what it’s been getting, not what you need, Fundaro says.

It’s not that the advice is bad – Zoe’s kit also gives you the option of wearing a continuous glucose monitor, which helps decode your responses to food. A set of Zoe recommenda­tions MH reviewed included eating avocados, apples and courgette and avoiding white bread and ‘savoury pies’. But you don’t need a glucose and microbiome investigat­ion to know that. Zoe also has you track your food, a habit that has positive effects on your health and can provide incentive to make changes.

BOTTOM LINE You’re probably not going to be steered wrong, since a healthy diet and the microbiome are inseparabl­e. But the research doesn’t yet support forking over money for diet recommenda­tions based on your microbiome.

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