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.

Long-term studies are being conducted to follow the microbiome changes in participants over six months to a year, which will provide exciting data on the effects of diet on gut health.

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.

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

The Human Microbiome Project aimed to define healthy versus diseased microbiomes by studying diverse populations, revealing significant individuality in gut microbiomes and the challenges in establishing universal health standards. Additionally, the microbiomes of traditional populations represent the closest approximation to how our ancestors lived, suggesting that our current industrialized microbiome may be deteriorating due to factors like antibiotic use and a Western diet.

The high fermented food group in our study showed an increase in microbiota diversity and a decrease in inflammatory markers, indicating a positive impact on the immune system.

Microbes can reflect our health status and actively affect our health, as shown in studies by Jeff Gordon's group at Washington University.

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.