The collaboration between different research groups at Stanford has been essential for studying the impact of diet on the microbiome and human health, allowing for comprehensive human studies. We can monitor hundreds to thousands of different parameters in the immune system longitudinally from a blood draw, allowing us to see how the immune system changes in concert as we change the microbiome with diet.

We observed significant changes in participants' microbiomes in response to good and bad diets, aligning with existing literature on beneficial and harmful bacteria.

Dietary changes can lead to rapid shifts in the gut microbiome, but it often returns to a state similar to its original condition, demonstrating resilience.

Our flagship study, funded by philanthropy, aimed to understand how a high fiber diet versus a diet rich in live microbes affects the microbiome and immune system.

Short-term fasting may have metabolic benefits, but its long-term effects on gut microbiota health are still unclear, and excessive mucus consumption by microbes can lead to inflammation.

In a study on bread consumption, increasing the amount of bread in participants' diets did not lead to significant changes in their microbiomes, indicating that individual microbiome composition plays a crucial role in dietary effects.

We observed that individuals with higher diversity in their gut microbiomes at the start of the study were more likely to experience decreases in inflammation when consuming a high fiber diet.

The human microbiome plays a crucial role in how individuals respond to nutrition, and it can be altered, unlike genetics, which opens up possibilities for improving health through dietary changes.

The gut microbiome is critical for modulating our immune status, and changes in diet can fundamentally alter how the immune system operates, potentially reducing inflammation and disease risk.