History is evident that we believed that microbes & bacteria living in our body are the reason for our illness & disease. We have misunderstood them- we have done so at the cost of our own peril, the main reason why a large proportion of people are suffering from chronic diseases.
Our body is a container for trillions of microbes ( ~ 38 trillion) living in our gut. Our body has more foreign cells than human cells. Our body has around 25,000 human genes & about 2 to 20 million bacterial genes. This essentially means that by gene count, we are only 1% human.
Sometimes we get confused if we made microbes or microbes made us!
They’ve been a part of us just as they were a part of our ancestors. Microbial community in our gut is also referred to as the CEO of our body- they let us believe that our human body is taking all life decisions. However, it is our gut bacteria who is calling all the shots.
Microbial community rents out real estate in our gut & feeds on a portion of the calories we consume. In return, they help us digest your food, regulate inflammation, and synthesize key vitamins, metabolites, and neurotransmitters.
In fact, poop of the bacteria, also called as metabolites, is what provides our body essential nutrients & keeps us away from chronic diseases.
Our DNA does not change during our life. It remains the same. Therefore how our DNA can be responsible for our chronic illness. It is not genes but how they are expressed. The interesting part is 99% of genes that are expressed in our body are not our own. Microbes living in our gut constitute 99% of genes. In fact, we can control how our genes are expressed by modifying what we eat.
Therefore it is often called YOU + Bacteria= YOU.
With human evolution, everyone wanted to be in power. This is the reason Kingdoms were built & were ruled by Kings. Microbes living in our gut are no different. Some microbes want to be in power for good while others may not benefit others (but neither harm them). No one is purely good at heart & no one is evil either. The fact of the matter remains that key to co-existence is striking a balance between various microbes involved. This is what our gut microbes plan to achieve through maintaining a harmonious co-dependent relationship.
This balance takes different shapes. It does not mean sharing equal space in the gut. It can be sharing of communal spaces in an organized hierarchy. However this unique defined composition of gut microbes goes out of control, it can make greedy & opportunists ones hoard your gut. This can make you susceptible to risk of inflammation & make us prone to chronic illness.
The question arises who is king of your gut kingdom?
A microbiome type (or Enterotype) is one of the three stable combinations of gut bacteria that co-exist in communities with one of the three families- Bacteroides, Firmicutes or Prevotella.
Enterotype is a cluster of bacteria that dominate a person’s microbiome & these clusters are associated with some specific long term eating patterns. These clusters do not have specific borders. In fact, they are distinguished by a dominant bacteria community within a person’s microbiome.
Your microbiome’s place in one enterotype may vary: some people may be strongly characterised by either plants, animal protein or grain dominance, others may be to a lesser extent.
It is also possible to have a “mixed type”, which occurs when your microbiome is located at a crossover point between 2 two different enterotypes.
Let us discuss each of these family types in detail:
- House of Bacteroides: This class of family is also referred to as house of bloat. Bacteroides dominate this type of microbiome, maximum upto 80% but usually 20% to 30% on an average. This indicates lack of diversity, the starting point of chronic illness. Higher the number of Bacteroides, the lower the diversity & high risk of attracting life threatening diseases.
Bacteroides feast daily on meat, simple sugar, fats & protein. In fact, they can pretty much eat anything. If they go out of control or our gut has a high number of these folks, we can actually suffer from bloating & inflammation. These are the ones who enjoy eating excessively specifically western diet & can’t control their appetite.
- House of Prevotella: Prevotella is neither good nor bad. These bacteria are neutral & break down complex fibres that are found in plants. However, these folks also feed on sweet & simple sugar if it is on our meal plate. They are also called as veggie munchers.
- House of Firmicutes: These folks feed on grain & are essentially not so complicated. Firmicutes are common in people who thrive a lot on resistant starches & dietary fibre that are found in grains. The house of Firmicutes consist of abundant butyrate producing microbes & boasts high yield of this anti-inflammatory short chain fatty acids. These generally feed on Banana, Potato, Barley & Oats.
Long term diet & medication influencer which type or mix of types our microbiome belongs to. This is the reason we suggest going for at least 3 cycles of gut microbiome testing to evaluate how our gut microbiome meets dietary recommendations suggested by us based on your gut microbiome sequencing.
If you were to sustain significant changes in your intake of meat vs. carbohydrates over a long period, you would witness movement in your enterotype along the scale towards one cluster or another. It is also why we recommend going for re-test every three months.
Before you jump on to any fad solution to improve your overall health, it is best to learn which house of microbes you belong to. Sign up for our UP THE GUT intelligence solution to decode composition of your gut microbiome, assess how they impact your overall health & determine unique dietary recommendations that can keep your gut microbiome in state of equilibrium.
