AI-powered Atlas Health app can help tackle obesity, reduce risk of illnesses and improve gut health

Knowing what’s going on inside your guts is pretty much impossible as we can’t just tally up the different bacterias making up our gut microbiome. It would be great if we did, though, since our guts play a vital role in regulating mood, appetite and more.

Thanks to the Atlas Biomed microbiome test and the accompanying Atlas Health app, you can get an overview of this hidden area of the body and get recommendations on how to improve its health without visiting the doctor or having to undergo any invasive procedures.

• Order your Atlas Health microbiome test kit directly for £149, directly from Atlas Biomed

Why is gut health important? A healthy microbiome can reduce the risk of illnesses and conditions such as ulcerative colitis, Type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease and Crohn’s disease. As well as that, knowing what type of food your gut microbiome prefers can help you alleviate unpleasant symptoms such as bloating or stomach cramps.

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Once your samples have been analysed in the Atlas Biomed lab, you are provided with a report that contains useful information about your microbiome. This includes disease protection levels, microbiome diversity, microbiome type, probiotics and beneficial bacteria levels, dietary fibre and butyrate amount, vitamin synthesis report and microbiome nationality, the latter which is basically a DNA test for the gut, telling you the main characteristics of your microbiome.

For example, my microbiome is characterised by the abundance of butyrate-producing bacteria, which is apparently a good thing. I also found out that I have a low risk of coronary heart disease, Crohn's disease and obesity, plus a high microbiome diversity, which makes my guts more resilient to external factors.

Based on your results and microbiome characteristics, the Atlas Health app provides personalised food recommendations and advice, using the latest scientific research and nutritional guidelines. The app works like a food diary, but as opposed only being able to add the food items manually, you can also take a photo of the meal you’re having and the AI automatically adds the ingredients to the diary. This makes the food logging process a bit less painful and definitely more fun. And as usual when it comes to training AI, the more food you log, the better it will get in recognising ingredients.

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The Atlas Biomed test is not a medical test and merely provides you with a ‘snapshot’ of the current state of your microbiome diversity. So, even if you are experiencing any negative effects of a weak microbiome (e.g. bloating, cramps), by following the correct diet and food recommendations through the Atlas Health app, you can improve your gut health significantly.

It’s also worth mentioning that the Atlas Biomed microbiome test only looks at what’s going in your guts, not the rest of the body. The report might say that your gut has average ‘B2 vitamin synthesis’ capacity but that doesn’t mean there isn’t enough B2 in your system. This is similar to the NGX DNA test as that test 'only' looks at how genetically predisposed you are to reacting and producing certain nutrients, not the levels in your system.

• Order your Atlas Health microbiome test kit directly from Atlas for £149

If you are interested in gut health – you really should be – and/or experiencing uncomfortable symptoms such as bloating and don’t know what the reason is, you should definitely give the Atlas Microbiome test a go. Not to mention, you can also find out whether your gut is a ‘Grain lover’, a ‘Western gourmand’ or a ‘Veggie muncher’. And who wouldn't want to know this?