Can’t Lose Weight? 3 Ways Your Gut Bacteria Could Be to Blame

A diverse community of organisms means you have all sorts of bacteria that help with certain roles. The work is divided and you know how that saying goes: many hands make light work. So when you have a diverse group of just the right microbes – your energy production is up, your metabolism is running like a dream, and you feel fantastic. Scientists have found that certain gut microbes help shape your body and keep obesity at bay. A recent study on “intestinal microbiota alterations” in obese individuals suggests “it may be possible to intervene in obesity by targeting the gut microbiota.”1 One day we might even be able to lose weight by simply adding certain bacteria to the gut microbiome.

Jul 22, 2018

Improve Insulin Sensitivity With This Single Step

The struggle to lose weight and ward off disease has a lot to do with your insulin sensitivity. Insulin sensitivity can be defined as as, “how responsive your cells are to insulin". Improving it can help you reduce insulin resistance and the risk of many diseases, including diabetes. Improving insulin sensitivity is a goal to put at the top of your health goals. Why? It’s well documented that controlling your blood sugar levels is crucial to your overall health.

Aug 15, 2018

Are Antimicrobial Cleaning Products Making Children Fat? New Study Says Yes

Everyday household cleaners may be contributing to obesity in children by altering their gut microbiome, a new study says.

Oct 03, 2018

19 Science-Backed Ways to Improve Your Gut Health

You’ve probably noticed the monsoon of gut health advice flooding the internet. This surge was triggered by the discovery of the gut microbiota – or the 40 trillion microorganisms living in your gut. Researchers continue to uncover how this ecosystem plays a role in nearly every biological function in the body, which makes anyone concerned with their health ask the obvious question: How do you improve gut health naturally?

Oct 04, 2018

14 Surprising Things You Didn't Know About Your Gut Microbiome

Unless you’ve been living on some remote island, without access to the Internet, sipping piña coladas – there is no way you’ve missed all the hype about gut health. It seems every day somebody’s coming out with a new colon cleanse, a gut health reboot, or a fancy new probiotic sure to solve your tummy troubles. Unlike other health fads, the focus on gut health is here to stay!

Jan 31, 2019

The Microbiome and Weight Gain: Everything We Know So Far

In our grandparents’ times, obesity was a rare occurrence. This has changed over the past four decades. According to the World Health Organization, obesity has almost tripled since 1975. Today, more than one-third of the world’s population is either overweight or obese. While this was more prevalent in first-world countries, it is now common in most parts of the world. Currently, obesity and being overweight kills more people than undernourishment.

Mar 04, 2019

How An Unhealthy Gut Microbiome Can Make You Fat

Science continues to prove that the old adage “you are what you eat” is profoundly true. This is because you have trillions of microorganisms living in your gut, which are directly responsible for nearly every aspect of your health. These microbes make up what’s called your, “gut microbiota.” They are especially influential in determining your likelihood of gaining excessive weight, becoming obese, and developing obesity-related diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and premature death.

Jul 13, 2018

Can’t Lose Weight? 3 Ways Your Gut Bacteria Could Be to Blame

A diverse community of organisms means you have all sorts of bacteria that help with certain roles. The work is divided and you know how that saying goes: many hands make light work. So when you have a diverse group of just the right microbes – your energy production is up, your metabolism is running like a dream, and you feel fantastic. Scientists have found that certain gut microbes help shape your body and keep obesity at bay. A recent study on “intestinal microbiota alterations” in obese individuals suggests “it may be possible to intervene in obesity by targeting the gut microbiota.”1 One day we might even be able to lose weight by simply adding certain bacteria to the gut microbiome.

Jul 22, 2018

Your Microbiome Can Impact Your Glycemic Response

In Viome’s latest breakthrough clinical research study, we found that the glycemic response to foods varies greatly based on each person’s unique gut microbiome. In this scientific paper published by our researchers, we describe the clinical study in which we compare how different foods affect blood glucose on an individual level.

Jul 01, 2019

The Microbiome Obesity Connection

Over the last few decades, researchers have been on a quest to find the root causes of obesity. With research on the gut microbiome rolling in on a regular basis, scientists have recently uncovered evidence that your gut microbes may also be partly to blame.

Jul 12, 2019

Improve Insulin Sensitivity With This Single Step

The struggle to lose weight and ward off disease has a lot to do with your insulin sensitivity. Insulin sensitivity can be defined as as, “how responsive your cells are to insulin". Improving it can help you reduce insulin resistance and the risk of many diseases, including diabetes. Improving insulin sensitivity is a goal to put at the top of your health goals. Why? It’s well documented that controlling your blood sugar levels is crucial to your overall health.

Aug 15, 2018

Let’s Talk About Depression

It’s estimated that almost 20 million adults in the United States have experienced depression at some point in their life. Although feeling sadness and grief are normal human emotions, experiencing depression can be a life-threatening disorder - including putting your own life at risk. It can feel like living in a tower of solitude, isolated by an overwhelming ocean in a storm with no end in sight. For families, having a loved one suffering from this disease can feel like drowning, without hope in sight for what seems like an impenetrable condition. The economic burden associated with depression each year costs America over 210 billion dollars. That includes lost income at work, to the cost of medication, down to the costs associated with hospital visits. Ultimately, the greatest cost of mental health disorders are the number of lives that are taken each year, too soon.

Aug 19, 2019

Is Gut Imbalance to Blame for Your Hormonal Changes?

Not surprisingly, the man who wrote “women age like fine wine,” forgot to mention the unpleasant changes many women experience as they age. Whereas, we like to believe women enter their more mature years as graceful and radiant creatures, the truth is many women are more likely to be experiencing waves of hot flashes that seem to frequent as quickly as they appear. Although there are many things to appreciate in life as we age - like wisdom and our growing families - mood swings and other biological changes don’t quite make the list.

Sep 13, 2019

10 Things Viome's Gut Test Can Reveal About Your Gut Microbiome

There’s a lot of tests out there that offer personalized diet recommendations. Viome’s food recommendations are supported by an in-depth analysis of your living microorganisms and their behavior on a molecular level. Think of it as the Instagram to your inner world—a snapshot of what’s happening inside your body, and each day we're getting a bigger picture. Curious to know some things this gut test can reveal about you? You may be more than a little surprised by what you find.

Sep 14, 2019

Race to 2 Million: Join Us In the Battle Against Chronic Diseases

Viome’s mission has always been to make chronic illness optional – a goal we firmly believe is not only achievable, but within grasp when enough people care to solve the problem. Artificial intelligence requires a massive amount of data in order to identify patterns, especially when you factor in the many different activities that may cause the same disease in different individuals. We’re racing to 2 million gut microbiomes in an effort to unmask the mystery that clouds many chronic diseases including how individualized the activity of one’s gut microbiome truly is. Each month of our Race to 2 Million campaign we focus on a chronic disease and what we’re learning about it in relation to the gut microbiome. For the month of August, we’re zeroing in on depression.

Aug 12, 2019

The “Superfood” Conundrum: How Someone’s Superfood May Not Be So Super for You

If you follow health trends, you might notice the word “superfood” gets tossed around quite a bit. It seems like every month a new food is deemed super – like quinoa, broccoli, spinach, and blueberries. It’s not hard to see why: these foods are rich in antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals - and often times powerful natural anti-inflammatories. But one of the most common mistakes we make is assuming one superfood is a super food for all and frankly, our gut microbiome has its own opinion on that.

Sep 23, 2019

How Viome is Redefining the One-Size-Fits-All Health Industry

Like all revolutions, it started small: research began uncovering how individuals following a “healthy” diet experienced a wide variety of results. As time went on, it expanded as other studies unmasked nutritional status or dietary connections to a variety of diseases. Then came the discovery of the gut microbiome and the essential roles of microbes in digestion. This breakthrough shed light on why many diet trends missed the target for countless seeking weight-loss solutions.

Oct 11, 2019

Meet Your Second Brain: The Gut Microbiome and Your Digestion

If you’re an avid reader of the Viome blog, you might have read some interesting news about the gut-brain axis and mental health and behavior, but you might not realize how connected it is to normal digestion, too. The gut-brain axis is “bidirectional” which means messages and signals are sent both from the gut to the brain via the vagus nerve, and from the brain to the gut. That means, your gut microbes might be telling your brain what to eat, but your brain is also telling your gut when to start digesting and how quickly it occurs. The messages being sent to your GI tract are just as important as the ones being sent from it – but these interactions may affect you in several different ways.

Oct 10, 2019

Foods for Gut Health? Separating Facts from Myths

If your first inclination in gut health discussions is to think of food, it’s for a good reason. The best way you can optimize your health is through the nutrients you put into your body. Of course, the immediate advice always remains the same – 1. avoid alcohol 2. avoid processed sugar and 3. limit fatty junk food intake - But what comes next? Is it really as simple as “eat healthy?”

Oct 23, 2019

Are You Feeling Those Wintertime Blues? So Is Your Gut!

In spring and summer, when we walk outside and catch some rays, that sunlight is causing all sorts of beneficial biochemical reactions in your skin. You might be familiar with UV rays – those things that sunblock is supposed to protect you from – but did you know that they also play an important role in keeping you healthy?

Dec 02, 2019

3 Ways Your Gut Microbiome Can Impact Sleep

You’ve heard it in the news and you’ve heard it online – getting more sleep is one of the hottest health trends being talked about. Although making sure you stick to a healthy sleep schedule and aim for 8 hours a day is more than just your typical health “craze”, there is a lot more to managing your night-time routine.

Dec 15, 2019

3 Types of Personalized Nutrition Companies That Aren’t Being Honest With You

We get it. Viome isn’t the only company to use the words “science-based, personalized nutrition”. The internet is saturated in companies claiming to offer recommendations based on your body type, a questionnaire, or your DNA. Although technology today is racing at the speed of light, most likely these companies are falling short on what they promise: offering limited “personal” options or generalizing their results in a manner that doesn’t quite add up.

Dec 16, 2019

Top 5 Ways to Spot a Fad Diet

There are a lot of great reasons why you should improve your diet, and managing your weight is absolutely one of them. But whatever your reason for starting your weight loss – or weight gain – journey, determining what dietary changes to incorporate into your routine can seem overwhelming. It may also seem like it’s common sense to figure out which foods you should be eating and which to be avoiding. Unfortunately, bad advice is just about everywhere you turn, with so many sources telling you what dietary practices are right and wrong. You might find that you’re confronted with conflicting advice every which way you turn. Much of the advice you hear is most likely contributing to the use of Fad Diets – trendy and often ineffective ways to lose weight or improve your health.

Dec 22, 2019

Why RNA, and Not DNA: How Viome Assesses Microbial Activity

As a health and wellness platform, how we generate our results is a common question among users and the public alike. If you’re considering changing your lifestyle to embrace a healthier diet, it’s important to find a reliable guide you can trust. This is why Viome has worked so hard to develop a novel and scientifically reliable way of analyzing your samples. When we embarked on this path, we sought to ensure we were using state of the art technology. By combining innovative gut microbiome sequencing technology straight from the Los Alamos National Labs with a highly specialized machine-learning model, we’ve created one of the most advanced platforms to analyze your gut microbiome activity. There are many things that set us apart from our competition, whether it be the advanced algorithms we use, our world-class team, or our determination to redefine the healthcare industry. This includes our technology– and why we choose to examine RNA over DNA.

Jan 12, 2020

The Cost in Healthcare No One is Talking About (Hint: It’s You)

The ugly truth about poor health is that it doesn’t just wreak havoc on our bodies - it can also put a significant amount of stress on our finances. The costs associated with poor health can range from an increase in doctor’s visits to expensive prescription drugs, and can even result in extended hospital stays from chronic conditions.

Jan 19, 2020

10 Ways to Invest in Your Health

It has been amazing to witness people all over the world in the past few weeks quickly adjust to new ways of living, working, and creating new routines to keep healthy. With these changes, we’re also given an opportunity to invest in ongoing wellness for ourselves and our families and create new healthy habits together. Over the next few weeks, Viome will be providing tips on eating the right superfoods for you in affordable, more convenient ways, and how to support your gut microbiome to improve your overall wellness.

Apr 03, 2020

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Bariatric Surgery

There are dozens of ways an imbalanced gut microbiome can affect us, and it varies from individual to individual. Diet, lifestyle, environment, age, gender – all of these can alter the gut microbiome balance. When compromised, the most immediate effects can be seen through our digestion and even heighten our risk for weight gain.

Apr 13, 2020

Gut Health is the Key to Optimizing Physical Performance

It's clear that a cornerstone of great health and stronger immunity is a healthy gut. People are becoming more conscious of this relationship. But, lesser-known is that your gut also plays a fundamental role in fitness. This system does more than simply breaking down nutrients. It produces hormones like testosterone and estrogen, and neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine. It also influences inflammation levels. All of this is important to athletic performance.

Apr 22, 2020