7.1 Phylum

This section is under construction

The gut microbiome of most westerners is dominated by Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes, which together make up 80% or more of the total sample. Most people also have smaller amounts of Actinobacteria, Proteobacteria and Verrucomicrobia. This overall composition is so common in healthy people that it’s tempting to assume their dominance is “natural” or “normal”, but like much else with the microbiome, the situation is different outside the western world, a clue that it’s difficult to summarize a single individual’s microbiome as “good” or “bad.” It all depends.