29. Food Security & the Gut Microbiome II: How Diet and Other Factors Shape Health Outcomes

Welcome back to Just Medicine! 

This week, we continue a podcast series that explores the intersections of diet, food security and the gut microbiome, especially for Indigenous folks. 

In our previous episode of the series, we established a fantastic background on the importance of foods and food systems in Indigenous communities, as well as how diets are changing through time. We also discussed some of the adverse health and social outcomes that have disproportionately affected Indigenous communities through generations since colonization. 

In this episode, we’re having a conversation with Dr. Estello Nap Hill, a gastroenterology fellow who attended UBC medical school, with specific expertise in the gut microbiome. He speaks to the composition and factors that shape the gut microbiome, how the gut microbiome impacts health, and how microbes in more traditional hunter/gatherer diets differ from Westernized diets. He shares his clinical and research expertise on the topics to emphasize the importance of food to overall health and wellbeing from a medical standpoint.