How your genes impact your gut

FUT2 gene

There are variants of our FUT2 gene that can have a big impact on your gut and health, and that of your children. Knowing whether you have these variants or not can help you care for your, and their, gut.

The FUT2 gene influences who and what lives in your gut, as well as your susceptibility to viral infections and chronic inflammatory disease.

2’FL - Secretor or non-secretor

The FUT2 gene does so by prescribing whether you’re a ‘secretor’ or ‘non-secretor’ type, or in other words whether you produce a prebiotic called 2’FL. Around 20% of people of European descent are non-secretors.

2’FL feeds healthy bacteria and acts as a decoy for bad bugs, moving them out via your stool so they don’t attach to your gut wall.

2’FL also impacts the quality of the mucous in your gut, and the quality of your breast milk if you’re a nursing mother. This can quality can impact your baby’s gut bacteria and mucous (a key protective element), potentially predisposing them to leaky gut and a host of health issues like allergies, asthma and more.

As individuals, being a non-secretor can mean you have lower Bifidobacterium, the first species to colonise the human gut that helps prevent inflammation and disease. A lack of 2’FL can thus lead to bacterial imbalances, or dysbiosis, which can lead to systemic inflammation, low immunity and compromised health.

Other negative impacts can be on our amino acids (cell building blocks) and neurotransmitters (mood-impacting brain messengers), which rely on healthy good bacteria for production.

So what can you do?

Once you know your status, you can eat or take soluble fibre such as Betaglucans and Oligosaccharides. These allow the key probiotics mentioned above to attach to your gut, creating a healthy environment for good bacteria to proliferate and crowd out the bad.

Betaglucans are found in foods like oats, rye, rice, mushrooms and seaweed.

Oligosaccharides are a prebiotic carbohydrate found in onions, garlic, asparagus, tomatoes, bananas, and Jerusalem artichoke.

To find out your genetic predisposition and gut, I offer quality testing that looks at many variants, not just a trendy few. Book a free call to discuss.