AHS19

Our gut is home to trillions of microbes, collectively called the gut microbiome, that play essential roles in our health. In recent years, there has been great interest in how we can modulate the gut microbiome to improve health and prevent or even reverse chronic disease. You can now purchase at-home microbiome tests and find hundreds of different products online that claim to benefit the gut. But are these tests accurate, and do these interventions actually work? In this talk, I will provide an evidence-based discussion of commercial microbiome testing options and an overview of current knowledge regarding the efficacy of diet, exercise, probiotics, prebiotics, and fecal microbiota transplants in modulating gut microbial communities to improve health.