Healthy Eating or Good Gut Health for Healthy Aging?
Healthy eating is one of the key factors for healthy aging. Treating our bodies well and nourishing it according to our age and health status have always been the secret sauce to making our later years spent in better health. In other words, what we do today will help to make our future a healthy one! Now what if I told you that there is a distinct gut microbiome signature that is associated with healthy aging and survival in the latest decades of life? Would you start prioritizing your gut health?
A large set of longitudinal data published in the journal Nature Metabolism has identified distinct signatures in the gut microbiome that are associated with either a healthy or unhealthy aging trajectory, which in turn can predict survival of older individuals.
The most striking pattern characteristic of healthy aging was the gradual decline in the genus Bacteroides. But what is even more interesting is the fact that a healthy gut microbiome gradually shifts and develops over a lifespan. This suggests that dietary and probiotic recommendations aimed at improving gut microbiome health may need to be tailored to each individual's age and their personal microbiome footprint...So until we know more information, for healthy aging, it is also important to keep our gut in tip top shape!
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