Microbiome is changeable—faster than body traits

Nicola emphasizes the microbiome's malleability and how diet can shift microbial communities within weeks.

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Episode notes

Is gut health just about taking a probiotic? Or could the bacteria in your gut be shaping your body fat, inflammation and cholesterol?

In this episode, Professor Nicola Segata, a pioneer of new gut technology, and ZOE’s Chief Scientist Professor Sarah Berry, explain a major breakthrough in gut science. After analysing more than 34,000 microbiomes, the team identified 50 gut bacteria strongly linked to better health. Even more striking, many of them were previously unknown to science.

Nicola explains how his team ranked hundreds of gut bacteria to define the “top 50” linked to better health, and explore how these bacteria group into patterns connected to inflammation, blood sugar, heart health and body fat.

We uncover how you can improve your overall health in weeks by optimising your microbiome, ask whether probiotics do what we think they do, and examine why plant diversity may matter more than any single supplement. This episode also reveals what happened when these findings were tested in trials, and why the results surprised even the scientists.

Are you feeding the right gut bacteria? And, if not, what will happen to your health if you start today?

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Timecodes

00:00 Intro

03:00 The biggest microbiome breakthrough in a decade

08:20 The problem with most gut research

10:25 Scientists identified the top 50 gut bacteria

11:05 The first real way to measure gut health

13:45 The “dark matter” scientists found in our guts

15:50 Why bad gut bacteria love sugar