Hippocrates (400BC) “Death sits in the bowels”

15 Gut Bacteria Facts

• Humans have roughly 10 trillion cells.
• Humans have roughly 100 trillion microbes within their bodies.
• Of all the microbes within us, the gut bacteria are the most important.
• Gut bacteria differ between obese and lean people.
• It is possible to change the composition of one’s gut bacteria through one’s diet.
• Transferring the gut bacteria from obese mice to lean mice causes fat gain in lean mice.
• Artificial sweeteners might cause weight gain via their effects on gut bacteria.
• Humans are born with no microbes (or very, very few).
• “Ecobiotics” (Faecal pills) might replace antibiotics one day.
• Faecal transplants have been used successfully to treat c. difficile bowel infections in the last 30 years.
• Diabetes often gets cured within 48 hours of stomach bypass operations; a change in the gut bacteria is one of the mechanisms effecting this cure.
• People who eat grains have higher levels of a particular gut bacteria which is linked with arthritis and autoimmune diseases.
• Maternal separation in baby rhesus monkeys alters the gut bacteria in the same way as stress does.
• Use of antibiotics in infancy is associated with an increased risk of asthma and being overweight in childhood. (Antibiotics have been used to fatten animals for the last 60 years).
• The gut bacteria that one eventually obtains are derived from one’s mother and from exposure to the environment.