In this article
10 Things We Learned Over 10 Years
What 1 Million+ Microbiomes Taught Us
For a decade, we’ve analyzed human biology in real time, not the fixed blueprint of DNA, but the biology in motion: RNA, or gene expression. Much of what we found runs counter to what you’ve been told about health. We’ve spent ten years studying the interactions between the gut and oral microbiomes and cellular health to share the one factor that holds the answers: your biochemical individuality, which is as unique as your fingerprint.
1: There’s no such thing as universally healthy food.
Spinach is good for you. Everybody thinks that.
But our data says otherwise, and not by a little.
Across the microbiomes we’ve analyzed, a striking share of people were advised to minimize or avoid foods with sterling reputations: spinach, almonds, turmeric, watermelon, and many others. Not because those foods are “bad,” but because health isn’t a fixed property of the food. It’s a relationship between the food and the specific biology of the person eating it.
Take spinach. It’s high in oxalates, compounds some people’s microbiomes break down easily and others’ can’t. If your gut lacks the active machinery to handle them, that daily “healthy” smoothie may be quietly working against you, building up toxins and inflammation in your body, while your neighbor thrives on the very same one.
Blood sugar tells the same story. Hand two people the same slice of bread or the same banana, and their blood sugar responses can look nothing alike: one barely moves, the other spikes. The food is identical, so the difference is the person. A large part of it comes down to the gut, and how each person’s microbes turn that food into fuel.
Multiply that across every food and every person, and the myth of the universal superfood falls apart. Over the past decade we’ve delivered more than a hundred million food recommendations, and almost no two are alike. The question was never “Is this food healthy?”. It’s “Is this food healthy for you?”. And for the first time, your own biology can answer.
FROM THE RESEARCH
When people ate the exact same food, their blood-sugar responses varied widely, and the difference tracked with the activity of each person’s gut microbiome, not the food alone. It is direct evidence that “healthy” can differ from one person to the next, right down to a single meal.
Diabetes Therapy (2021)
OUR DATA
~60% advised to minimize or avoid spinach
121M+ distinct food recommendations delivered
~27% carry active oxalate-degrading microbes