Your gut is a complex yet integral part to maintaining your health. It affects both internal and external parts of your body – from your immune system to even your mental health. Due to its important role in your body, it is essential that you keep it in good condition by balancing out your gut bacteria.
You can keep your gut bacteria balanced through a number of ways, including:
- Regulating your diet to include vegetables, fermented foods, prebiotic foods and whole grains
- Getting a decent amount of sleep daily (between 8 to 10 hours for an adult)
- Eating slowly
- Staying hydrated (3.7 litres for men a day and 2.7 litres for women)
- Undergoing regular gut microbiome testing.
An imbalanced gut can cause many serious detriments to your body – including slowing down your nutrition absorption rate, negatively affecting your blood sugar regulation and preventing your body from storing fat. Thus, to make sure your gut bacteria is not imbalanced and having harmful effects on your body, taking a gut microbiome test may be an option worth considering.
What is gut microbiome testing?
Gut microbiome testing is the process of analysing the health of your gut microbiota, namely the group of bacteria residing in your gut. A gut microbiome test analyses a sample of human stool (poo) by isolating microbial DNA from your stool (usually from bacteria, yeasts and parasites). From this isolation, a gut microbiome test can determine which microbes are dominant in the gut, and whether there is a healthy balance between the microbes present.
There are many ways you can undergo gut microbiome testing – from getting it professionally done with a health practitioner to purchasing a take-home do-it-yourself kit. Undergoing a gut microbiome test with a professional health practitioner will ensure your stool is tested correctly, and that you do not have to worry about sending your test to a laboratory, nor interpreting the results yourself. Visiting a health practitioner will also help with gaining further insight into your gut microbiome test results.
How can gut microbiome testing be beneficial to your health?
As with all sicknesses, catching it early will (in most cases) mean a smoother and quicker recovery.
Hence, it is important to take gut microbiome tests regularly to screen for certain pathologies – namely inflammatory bowel disease of bowel cancers. Gut microbiome tests can also help with diagnosing chronic conditions and confirm the levels of specific bacteria and parasites in the body.
The results from a gut microbiome test can also form the basis of a healthy lifestyle guide or change for an individual, determining certain vitamins that may be beneficial, identifying inflammation levels and aiding with digestion.
When it comes to nutrition, taking a gut microbiome test before implementing any dietary guides may help with providing further insight into your body. Not only will a microbiome test help you with understanding your gut’s health, it may also provide invaluable insight into your body for your nutritionist or health practitioner – to better diagnose your health concerns and recommend nutrition plans.
Visit your local health practitioner for more information on gut microbiome testing and how it may help you along your journey to ideal nutritional health.