The Truth About Your Gut Microbiome and Your Health

by Deborah Maragopoulos FNP | Mar 11, 2023 | Gut Health | 0 comments

What’s the truth about your gut microbiome? And what does it have to do with your health? Let’s talk about it

The beneficial bacteria and other microbes of your gut, known as your microbiome, affect many areas of your health. Your gut microbiome influences your innate immunity, your appetite, and your energy metabolism.

Your gut microbiome affects the health of your heart and your immune response. It plays a role in the development of metabolic syndrome particularly- insulin resistance and fatty liver gut microbiome disease. Your gut microbiome influences your moods, as well as cognition.

Throughout your life, your gut microbiome changes dramatically

Pregnancy, stress, diet, and medications affect your microbiome. Your gut microbiome functions like an endocrine organ by generating bioactive metabolites that can, directly and indirectly, impact your physiology. For instance, your microbiome uses the indigestible fiber from the carbohydrates you eat to create short-chain fatty acids, which have protective properties reducing inflammation and improving vascular tone.

While a healthy microbiome benefits you, some metabolites produced by imbalanced gut microbes from dietary metabolism have also been linked to pathologies such as atherosclerosis, hypertension, heart failure, chronic kidney disease, obesity, and type 2 diabetes mellitus.

Your gut microbiome affects your cellular metabolism

There have been case studies that have shown that if the microbiome of obese patients are transplanted into normal weight patients, the recipients will experience a change in their appetite and metabolism and become obese. That’s how influential the microorganisms in your gut are on your entire health and your metabolism.

Your gut microbiome consists of beneficial bacteria and commensal bacteria and fungi. Beneficial bacteria work for you, commensal microorganisms help beneficial bacteria survive and do their job properly. Dysbiosis is when your gut microbiome is out of balance. You don’t have enough beneficial bacteria or enough variety of commensal microorganisms in your gut. You may even have an overgrowth of pathogens.

It’s vitally important to keep your microbiome healthy

Eating a healthy plant-based diet including fermented foods to balance commensal microorganisms and fiber to feed beneficial bacteria is vital to the health of your microbiome. Keeping your hormones in balance and your hypothalamus functioning properly helps to keep your microbiome healthy and working for you not against you.

Research shows that prebiotics and probiotics can help alter the gut microbiome. Prebiotics are non-digestible food products that can alter the microbiome composition and function. Probiotics are live microorganisms. Prebiotics and probiotics supplements are thought to be able to improve the intestinal microbiome balance by altering the microbial composition and community structure. These supplements can help treat different conditions like irritable bowel syndrome, constipation, and immune issues like allergic reactions and infections in infancy. Fecal microbiota transplant is highly effective at treating recurrent infections from Clostridium difficile.

Your gut microbiome affects all aspects of your health which is why it’s so important to keep it in balance.

One way you can keep it in balance is to support your hypothalamus. Your hypothalamus controls the signaling between the brain and the gut and your metabolism. Your hypothalamus is incredibly sensitive to what’s going on in the gut. A healthy gut actually helps your hypothalamus function and a healthy hypothalamus helps your gut to maintain a healthy microbiome.

If you have any questions about your gut microbiome and your health, please join me in my Hormone Support Group. You can access it by signing up for my free Hormone Reboot Training.

Supporting your hypothalamus with Genesis Gold® helps optimize communication between the gut and the brain. And Genesis Gold® is rich in a variety of beneficial gut microbes.

The role of the microbiome for human health – NCBIhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov › articles › PMC5962619.

The microbiome: stress, health and disease Role of the gut microbiota in nutrition and health – The BMJhttps://www.bmj.com › content › bmj

Dietary metabolism, the gut microbiome, and heart failure: W. H. Wilson Tang, MD,1,2,3,4,5 Daniel Y. Li, MD,5 and Stanley L. Hazen, MD PhD; Nat Rev Cardiol. 2019 Mar; 16(3): 137–154.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Can your hypothalamus cause weight gain?

Yes. The hypothalamus is the master regulator of metabolism, controlling how your body stores and burns energy through its signaling to the thyroid, adrenals, and pancreas. When the hypothalamus becomes dysregulated by chronic stress, poor sleep, inflammation, or blood sugar instability, it defends a higher weight "set point" — causing the body to hold onto fat regardless of diet or exercise. This makes hypothalamic dysfunction an upstream root cause of stubborn weight gain.

What is a weight set point and why won't mine move?

A weight set point is the body weight your hypothalamus works to defend, calibrated over time by stress, sleep, hormones, and inflammation. When you diet, the hypothalamus perceives scarcity and responds by slowing metabolism, increasing hunger hormones, and suppressing satiety signals to return you to that set point. This is why most people regain lost weight within two to five years of conventional dieting — the set point itself was never recalibrated, only temporarily overridden.

Why do I gain weight under stress even when I'm not eating more?

Chronic stress raises cortisol, which disrupts blood sugar regulation, promotes abdominal fat storage, and signals the hypothalamus that the body is under threat. In survival mode, the hypothalamus defends fat stores and slows metabolism — so weight can increase even without any change in calorie intake. The stress chemistry, not the food, is driving the weight gain, which is why stress reduction is essential to any lasting metabolic reset.

Why do I regain weight after stopping GLP-1 medications?

GLP-1 medications work peripherally on appetite and gastric signaling, but they do not address the underlying hypothalamic dysregulation that sets your defended weight. Because the hypothalamic set point is never recalibrated, the body resumes defending its original weight once the medication stops — leading to significant regain. Long-term success requires restoring hypothalamic regulation so the set point itself lowers, rather than relying on appetite suppression alone.

How long does it take to reset your metabolism?

Genuine metabolic recalibration takes a minimum of 90 days, because the hypothalamus needs consistent signals of safety and sufficiency before it will lower its defended set point. This differs from a diet, which produces temporary suppression the body quickly corrects. A 90-day reset typically moves through three phases: stabilizing stress chemistry (days 1–30), rebuilding metabolic efficiency (days 31–60), and lowering the weight set point (days 61–90).

Why does my thyroid feel slow even though my labs are "normal"?

Under chronic stress, the body converts thyroid hormone into reverse T3, which blocks active thyroid receptors and slows metabolism at the cellular level — even when standard lab values appear normal. This means you can experience genuine symptoms of slow metabolism, such as fatigue, cold intolerance, and brain fog, while your thyroid panel looks unremarkable. Addressing the upstream hypothalamic and stress signaling often improves thyroid conversion and symptoms.

Is stubborn weight gain a willpower problem?

No. Stubborn weight gain is a signaling problem, not a willpower problem. The hypothalamus governs weight through survival mechanisms that operate below conscious control — defending its set point by slowing metabolism and increasing hunger when it perceives threat. No amount of discipline can override this system; lasting change comes from restoring hypothalamic regulation through reduced stress, balanced blood sugar, restorative sleep, and targeted nutritional support.

About the Author - Deborah Maragopoulos FNP

Known as the Hormone Queen®️, I’ve made it my mission to help everyone - no matter their age - balance their hormones, and live the energy and joy their DNA and true destiny desires. See more about me my story here...

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Last Updated: February 22, 2023