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However, as groundbreaking as this science has been, it is actually well behind the
curve; the first major study on the human microbiome was conducted more than 100
years ago in the early 1900s. Back then, Russian microbiologist and deputy director of
the Pasteur Institute Elie Metchnikoff showed that friendly gut bacteria and fermented
foods were vital to good health.
Although he received a Nobel Prize for his work, his microbiome work faded into
obscurity and was completely eclipsed 20 years later by the discovery of penicillin.
Anyone who has seen antibiotics knock out a dangerous infection knows penicillin was a
revolutionary discovery.
However, it also created a “kill everything” mentality in medicine without incorporating
Metchnikoff’s vitally important findings about the influence of gut bacteria on health and
immunity (Metchnikoff continued to drink sour milk daily and is now known as the “father
of natural immunity”).
Now, thanks in part to antibiotic-resistant bacteria, we have come full circle to the gut
microbiome and ground-breaking findings, such as the use of fecal transplants.
Researchers have found fecal transplants from healthy donors can alter the gut bacteria
in an infected person to eradicate antibiotic-resistant infection.
That’s right — they take poop from a healthy person and use it to inoculate the gut of an
infected person. It’s working so well the FDA has approved the procedure for certain
strains of resistant bacteria. Imagine if we had just continued to follow Metchnikoff’s path
in the first place.
Microbiome researchers are also learning what supplement marketers don’t want you to
know, that there is no perfect probiotic. Several thousand species of bacteria have been
identified so far, and it’s no longer appropriate to designate some as good and some as
bad. It’s more complex than that and involves their relationship to one another, the
person they inhabit, and the outside environment.
The environment plays such an important role in the microbiome that scientists can tell a
lot about a person simply by analyzing their gut bacteria, such as whether they were
born by C-section or vaginally or where they live on the planet. In fact, researchers
discovered people living in the United States have the least diverse gut bacteria of the
populations studied, with microbiome diversity falling well below the second least diverse
population.
Although we can alter our gut microbiome to affect our health, researchers theorize
about one-third of the microbiome has a genetic link and is set for life. This may help
explain why some people do everything right but constantly struggle with chronic health
conditions, obesity, allergies, and immune imbalances. The good news is we can still
have some influence on our gut microbiome health by making it more diverse.
One of the key discoveries from the gut microbiome project is that lack of gut bacteria
diversity is a primary factor in what makes people unhealthy. Poor diversity makes you
more prone to chronic disease, while the more diverse your gut bacteria are the healthier
you are. It impacts every facet of health.
As such, every field in medicine is researching the gut microbiome to improve health and
reverse disease, with major studies being published on topics that have long since been
understood in functional medicine, such as the concept of leaky gut and the importance
of gut health to immune and brain health.
Conclusion
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