What is the Microbiome?

Introduction

Think of your microbiome as a thriving ecosystem of tiny microbes—bacteria, fungi, and viruses—that live all over and inside your body. Even though you need a microscope to see these microbes, they have a huge impact on your health.

They help protect you from harmful pathogens and support your overall health on a systemic level by influencing how you digest food, your immune system, moods, hormone function and much more.

Just like different plants and conditions can affect a garden, your microbiome interacts with your environment in many ways. Some microbes might make certain environmental substances more harmful, especially when they have overgrown, while others work to reduce their effects, acting as a kind of natural buffer.

How Can the Microbiome Affect Health?

There are more microbial cells in your body than there are of your own cells, outnumbering ours by 10:1. Therefore, their ability to influence our health is profound. They are located in every part of your body—such as the gut, skin, and mouth—and each hosts its own unique community of microbes. Interestingly, these communities can influence each other from different locations. For example, an imbalance (also known as dysbiosis) within the gut microbes can influence the skin microbiota, presenting as dermatitis.

This ecosystem that lives within us starts forming in utero but evolves over time based on diet, medications, and environmental exposures. Just as a garden's health depends on its care and environment, the balance of your microbiome can significantly affect your overall health. For instance, imbalances in the gut microbiome are linked to conditions like diabetes, depression, IBS, frequent UTI's, obesity, heart disease, behavioural and digestive disorders and more.

Researchers have been developing tools, like a simple stool test, to detect changes in gut microbes to address dysbiosis and get to the root cause of your symptoms. Mother and Kin currently uses these stool tests, called Microbiome Maps or GI Maps through NutriPath.

How can we support our microbiome and ensure it stays abundant and healthy?

Stay tuned for the next blog post on prebiotics, probiotics and postbiotics!

Love,

Elle