Digitise your body before you put a fork inside your mouth! If someone would have told you this 5 to 7 years ago, you would have told them you must be joking! Technology has taken leap & bounds over last few years still when it comes to nutrition as medicine, we get inclined towards that lucrative quick fix without understanding our unique biology & chemistry “ Oh, have 25 grams of veggies daily! Which one is Broccoli? Tomatoes? Bell Pepper? Carrot? Broccoli - really? What if my microbes producing hydrogen Sulphide are active? What if it could cause bad breath YOur body needs a lot of antioxidants, take pomegranate! What if you do not right set of gut microbes to convert ellagic acid in Pomegranate into Urolithin A We need to think good beyond calories. Food is an ecosystem of 25,000 plus molecules. When you put a fork inside your mouth, around 1,000 molecules are hitting your top & bottom of the digestive tube. Food ingredients & molecules are first available to your microbes who convert them into metabolites /by products which are made available to your body. How your microbe interacts with each of these food substrates is what matters. One important case in point is PROTEIN. “ Oh you need to lose 10 Kgs, please stop eating wheat, reduce your carbohydrates, eat lot of protein” But did you know the excess protein you are ingesting lands up in your gut when a group of microbes called proteobacteria can synthesise some specific amino acids into harmful metabolites which are connected with onset & progression of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, chronic kidney disease & more. Some of these metabolites include P-cresol: byproduct of tyrosine implicated in pathogenesis of Chronic Kidney Disease, Cardiovascular disease, Obesity & type 2 diabetes( by suppressing GLP-1). -Phenylacetylglutamine(PAG): byproduct of phenylalanine which is connected with increasing LDL production & heart failure -TMAO-byproduct of lecithin, choline & L-carnitine which is said to cause plaque in arteries -Indoxyl Sulphate-byproduct of Tryptophan which is said to cause chronic kidney disease & cardiovascular issues & the list goes on Think before you replace your carbohydrates with protein. When it comes to carbs, processed foods are complete no but it does not mean wheat or rice is bad. Our today’s talk deep dive into interaction between amino acids & gut microbiome in detail