SUMMARY (updated Aug 2018):  Dr. Rob Knight’s talk, Saturday, October 18, 2014, listed eleven factors that optimize the gut microbiome based on the American Gut Data cautioning all is preliminary.  These are listed below along with an interesting article titled:  “Can We Eat Our Way To A Healthier Microbiome? It’s Complicated,” in which Dr. Knight and Jeff Leach (founders of crowd sourcing project “American Gut”) discuss the microbiome diet.  A KEY finding was that the more vegs consumed (30 different each week is BEST), the more diverse the microbiome, and that is thought to be associated with health and improved immune status since MANY chronic diseases (see the below Table) have changes in microbiome diversity AND composition, [Cantinean et al 2018].  A 2018 update on the American Gut data just published, [McDonald et al 2018], and it still says to eat 30 different vegs each week! This post also provides insight into what the microbiome experts are saying about translation of microbiome research into clinical practice.  And last, my synopsis of Dr. Knight’s talk is provided (see below the light bulb) along with my listing of fav microbiome researcher labs whose work is discussed in this post! Use them and PUBMED for your own disease prevention or mitigation research. Always. Stick with the evidence for answers as this blog does.