What if the food you ate could not only help you feel better and lose (or gain) weight, but also cure chronic health conditions, make you more alert, or even clear up your skin?
That’s exactly what personalized nutrition company Viome is trying to do. Viome’s CEO Naveen Jain will be onstage at the Smart Kitchen Summit {SKS} next week to talk about biomapping your menu and the power of personalized diets.
We spoke with Jain recently to learn more about how he’s trying to reinvent individual nutrition, starting with the gut. Read a little teaser about our conversation on Viome’s capabilities below, and be sure to get your tickets to SKS (there’s only a few left!) to hear him talk about the future of nutrition and personalization onstage.
You might not know it, but there are over 40 trillion microbes currently living in our gut. These microbes help us break down food and absorb nutrition, but, as living organisms, they differ person to person. So why isn’t the food we eat attuned to our specific gut microbe breakdown?
Jain thinks it should be. “We understand the human body at a biochemical level,” Jain told me. “Everything in your body is so personalized. That’s why we should change healthcare from the ‘one size fits all’ model.”
That’s why he created Viome, which uses an individual’s stool sample to check out what the microbes in their gut are doing. Based off of that data, the company can tell them which foods are good for them (and why)‚ which ones are not so good, and can also recommend dietary enzymes to help stabilize your gut or facilitate weight loss.
Viome used to be limited to analysis and supplements, but a few months ago the company acquired personalized nutrition company Habit. Jain said that they’re using Habit to add integrated recipes and meal planning into the Viome platform. Though it’s added new services, Viome has also gotten a lot more affordable. When it first launched in 2016 its test cost $400 — now it’s under half that.
All of this goes to show that personalized nutrition is getting more accessible, relevant, and better about pinpointing exactly how individuals should eat to meet their health goals. Is it the future of eating? It very well could be. The best way to find out is to join us at SKS as Jain and others do a deep dive into the potential power of personalized eating. We’ll see you there!
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