YC
David Zeevi on Personalized Nutrition Based on Your Gut Microbiome
@ Y Combinator
08/22/18
Takeaways
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David Zeevi
08/22/18
@ Y Combinator
I started working on personalized nutrition because of the alarming statistics on metabolic disease, where currently 4 out of 10 US adults are obese, and diabetes affects 1 in 10 Americans, leading to significant suffering and healthcare costs.
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David Zeevi
08/22/18
@ Y Combinator
Nutrition is widely accepted as a major source of diseases like diabetes, which has become much more prevalent over the last few decades compared to the 1980s.
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David Zeevi
08/22/18
@ Y Combinator
We identified four major changes in nutrition over the last 30 to 50 years: a reduction in fat consumption, an increase in sugar intake, more food additives, and changes in mealtimes due to modern lifestyles.
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David Zeevi
08/22/18
@ Y Combinator
In our study, we measured the effects of food intake by focusing on blood glucose responses, which are crucial for understanding how different foods affect individuals differently.
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David Zeevi
08/22/18
@ Y Combinator
Blood glucose spikes after eating carbohydrates lead to insulin secretion, which signals the body to store glucose as fat, contributing to weight gain and various metabolic diseases.
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David Zeevi
08/22/18
@ Y Combinator
We found that people's glucose responses to the same food can vary significantly, indicating that individual responses to foods are not categorically good or bad but depend on the person.
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David Zeevi
08/22/18
@ Y Combinator
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.
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David Zeevi
08/22/18
@ Y Combinator
We standardized our study by providing participants with the same breakfast over a week to measure variability in their glucose responses to food intake.
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David Zeevi
08/22/18
@ Y Combinator
Participants logged their food intake using an app, allowing us to analyze their dietary habits alongside their glucose responses for a comprehensive understanding of personalized nutrition.
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David Zeevi
08/22/18
@ Y Combinator
The gut microbiome consists of a diverse ecosystem of bacteria, archaea, fungi, and viruses that significantly influences our health and metabolic responses.
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David Zeevi
08/22/18
@ Y Combinator
Studies have shown that the gut microbiome can affect how individuals metabolize nutrients, such as carnitine from red meat, which can lead to atherosclerosis if specific microbes are present.
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David Zeevi
08/22/18
@ Y Combinator
Microbes can reflect our health status and actively affect our health, as shown in studies by Jeff Gordon's group at Washington University.
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David Zeevi
08/22/18
@ Y Combinator
In a study involving pairs of twins discordant for obesity, germ-free mice that received the microbiome of the obese twin became obese, while those receiving the lean twin's microbiome remained lean, despite eating the same food.
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David Zeevi
08/22/18
@ Y Combinator
The gut microbiome is so diverse that a large sample size is needed to determine what is healthy or unhealthy in it.
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David Zeevi
08/22/18
@ Y Combinator
A high diversity of the microbiome is associated with a healthy host, suggesting that exposure to various environments, like letting children eat dirt or having pets, can contribute to a healthy microbiome.
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David Zeevi
08/22/18
@ Y Combinator
To manipulate the gut microbiome, one can use antibiotics, probiotics, or prebiotics, but the full effects of these methods are still under study.
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David Zeevi
08/22/18
@ Y Combinator
Fecal transplants have been effective in treating Clostridium difficile infections by replacing a depleted microbiome with a healthy one, but their effectiveness varies among individuals.
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David Zeevi
08/22/18
@ Y Combinator
Postprandial glucose response is associated with weight regulation, as spikes in blood glucose can lead to insulin secretion, which signals the body to store fat.
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David Zeevi
08/22/18
@ Y Combinator
Choosing the right foods based on individual responses can help manage blood glucose levels and potentially prevent pre-diabetes without drastic dietary changes.
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David Zeevi
08/22/18
@ Y Combinator
A company called Day 2 is developing a product that predicts individual responses to foods based on microbiome analysis and questionnaires.
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David Zeevi
08/22/18
@ Y Combinator
We developed an algorithm that predicts people's glucose responses to meals based on their microbiome composition and other health metrics, achieving a correlation of 0.68, which is significantly better than previous methods.
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David Zeevi
08/22/18
@ Y Combinator
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.
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David Zeevi
08/22/18
@ Y Combinator
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.
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David Zeevi
08/22/18
@ Y Combinator
In the 1950s, Ancel Keys suggested that dietary fat clogs arteries, leading to a recommendation by the American Heart Association to decrease fat consumption, which influenced dietary guidelines like the food pyramid.
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David Zeevi
08/22/18
@ Y Combinator
The shift away from fat consumption towards more carbohydrates coincided with the rise of obesity and diabetes, suggesting a potential link between these dietary changes and health issues.
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David Zeevi
08/22/18
@ Y Combinator
I stopped being afraid of dietary fats after participating in the bread study and reading about the history of dietary recommendations.
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David Zeevi
08/22/18
@ Y Combinator
I'm currently researching how ocean and soil microbiomes affect global health, particularly how microbes in the ocean contribute to oxygen production and carbon dioxide sequestration.
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David Zeevi
08/22/18
@ Y Combinator
In a recent study, we found that a specific region in the microbiome's genome correlates with being thinner, suggesting a mechanistic connection between the microbiome and human health.
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David Zeevi
08/22/18
@ Y Combinator
This specific region in the microbiome helps convert sugars into butyrate, a compound that reduces inflammation and improves glucose metabolism in the host.
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David Zeevi
08/22/18
@ Y Combinator
I'm looking into how ocean microbiota can metabolize pollutants and plastics, aiming to understand their role in environmental health.
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David Zeevi
08/22/18
@ Y Combinator
In our study with 26 participants, we designed diets to either reduce or increase blood glucose levels, demonstrating that personalized diets can effectively manage glucose responses.
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David Zeevi
08/22/18
@ Y Combinator
We observed significant changes in participants' microbiomes in response to good and bad diets, aligning with existing literature on beneficial and harmful bacteria.