Got a gut feeling? Well, you might just be right! Did you know that humans have been around for 200,000 years? 98% of our existence has passed with an average life span between 19 – 25 years. Now isn’t that shocking! Yet, the exponential growth in science and medicine over the last two centuries has increased our life expectancy vastly. Researchers in the past decade or so, have been looking into factors that determine aging, longevity, and ability to adapt to environmental influences. One such factor that is associated with aging, is the microbial composition of our gut. Now, this might sound strange. But scientists will now be able to age you if you were to handover your stool sample to them!

When beginning a new diet, what you are essentially dealing with is a change in habit. And as the 19th century, Scottish writer Samuel Smiles mentions. “ To uproot an old habit is sometimes a more painful thing and vastly more difficult than to wrench out a tooth.”

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.