{"id":118,"date":"2014-02-27T18:54:02","date_gmt":"2014-02-27T18:54:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/knight-devel.colorado.edu\/wordpress\/?p=118"},"modified":"2025-07-31T12:46:01","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T19:46:01","slug":"can-we-eat-our-way-to-a-healthier-microbiome-its-complicated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/knightlab.ucsd.edu\/?p=118","title":{"rendered":"Can we eat our way to a healthier microbiome? It\u2019s complicated."},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/thesalt\/2013\/11\/08\/243929866\/can-we-eat-our-way-to-a-healthier-microbiome-its-complicated\"><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\">Rob and Jeff Leach talk to Maanvi Singh of The Salt about gut microbes, diet, and the current status of microbiome research. <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #999999;\">When our colleague Rob Stein got his <a style=\"color: #999999;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/blogs\/health\/2013\/11\/04\/240278593\/getting-your-microbes-analyzed-raises-big-privacy-issues\">microbiome analyzed<\/a> recently in the name of science journalism, we were totally fascinated.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #999999;\">As Stein noted, it may be possible to cultivate a healthier community of bacteria on and inside us by modifying our diets.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #999999;\">Stein was advised to eat more garlic and leeks for his. But we wondered: Are there other foods that promote a healthy microbiome in most people?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #999999;\">The answer, we found out, is fairly complicated. Microbiome research is still in the very early stages.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #999999;\">&#8220;We know quite a lot about associations between food and health, we know a bunch of associations between food and microbes, and we know a bunch about associations between microbes and health,&#8221; says microbiome researcher <a style=\"color: #999999;\" href=\"http:\/\/chem.colorado.edu\/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=263:rob-knight&amp;catid=41:faculty&amp;Itemid=93\">Rob Knight<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #999999;\">What researchers don&#8217;t yet know is how to put the whole picture together.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #999999;\">Are certain vegetables good because they have a positive effect on our microbiome? Or do they have a more direct effect on our metabolism? &#8220;That&#8217;s still very much an emerging area of research,&#8221; Knight tells The Salt.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/blogs\/thesalt\/2013\/11\/08\/243929866\/can-we-eat-our-way-to-a-healthier-microbiome-its-complicated\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-119\" src=\"https:\/\/knight-devel.colorado.edu\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Screen-Shot-2014-02-27-at-11.53.14-AM-300x193.png\" alt=\"Screen Shot 2014-02-27 at 11.53.14 AM\" width=\"300\" height=\"193\" srcset=\"https:\/\/knightlab.ucsd.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Screen-Shot-2014-02-27-at-11.53.14-AM-300x193.png 300w, https:\/\/knightlab.ucsd.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Screen-Shot-2014-02-27-at-11.53.14-AM-1024x661.png 1024w, https:\/\/knightlab.ucsd.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Screen-Shot-2014-02-27-at-11.53.14-AM.png 1184w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rob and Jeff Leach talk to Maanvi Singh of The Salt about gut microbes, diet, and the current status of microbiome research. &nbsp; &nbsp; When our colleague Rob Stein got<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":119,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/knightlab.ucsd.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/knightlab.ucsd.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/knightlab.ucsd.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knightlab.ucsd.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knightlab.ucsd.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=118"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/knightlab.ucsd.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1514,"href":"https:\/\/knightlab.ucsd.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions\/1514"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knightlab.ucsd.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/knightlab.ucsd.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knightlab.ucsd.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knightlab.ucsd.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}