Lately, Google has been abuzz with questions such as "What is the Netflix documentary about the gut?", "Is gut health a real thing?", "How do I heal my gut naturally?", "What is hack your health about?" Luckily for you, we watched Netflix's ‘Hack your health: Secrets of your gut’ and it highlighted a few interesting things that we’re really happy to see are becoming mainstream knowledge.
If you don't have the time to read it all, these are our notes:
- You can hack your health
- Eat a lot more fibre
- Our individual microbiomes are vastly different
- Diversity is the goal!
Skip to the bottom to see how you can hack your health with Adday.
You can hack your health
Firstly, the message is resoundingly clear - Knowing that you can change your microbiome is really exciting because you can’t change your genes but you can change your gut via lifestyle and eating habits. Professor Tim Noakes makes this point, and we find it positive that our health is not fixed, it’s flexible, adaptable, and can be changed. Your destiny isn’t purely genetic, it’s much more flexible than that.
You need to eat more fibre
The Netflix documentary also focused on the importance of fibre, which is something we’re a big fan of. It’s important to support the complex gut bacteria by feeding it a wide range of healthy fibres. In fact, if you can eat between 20 and 30 different fruits and vegetables a week, you’re doing well. The latest studies suggest we should be consuming at least 50g of fibre a day, while most people eat 15g per day. Because the complex gut bacteria needs an equally complex fibre source, if you’re only eating 15g of fibre, you’ll only be feeding certain bacteria which means the others die out.So it’s not simply enough to have a complex microbiome, we also need to feed it the fibre it needs. If you're in need of some assistance, Pre Immunity is a 100% fibre-based supplement, conveniently designed to support the Pro Immunity bacteria.
Our microbiomes are vastly different
The one part we found most interesting is that if you take 3 identical apples and you give them to 3 people, the impact of that apple will be different, depending on the individual’s microbiome. So while we used to say there are x amount of calories in an apple, in fact, the variable aspect in the equation is the microbiome, which will respond differently, depending on the individual. This is fascinating, and we can therefore focus on filling in the microbial gaps, adding bacteria that is low in population, to create a better working and more balanced ecosystem of bacteria.
Diversity is the goal
Diversity is certainly the goal, so the more strains, the better. To find out more about Mind Focus, Weight Balance and Symbiotic, who all include the bacteria of 9 strains plus a variety of fibre, check out our product pages and try our special 14 day trials.