Microbes in Your Gut Could be the Key to Good Health

Maybe those gross little creepy crawlies called “microbes” in our stomachs are the key to good health.

An illuminating piece in the New York Times by Moises Velasquez-Manoff outlined how the microbes on a farm (from the animal waste, plants, and soil) may help ward off allergies.

Allergies and microbes may be connected

Velasquez-Manoff carefully articulates that exposures to mold, bacteria and animal and plant material is crucial early in life (and perhaps even in utero). In addition, some of the farmers she spent time with talked about decades worth of repeated exposures to a myriad microbes.

Velasquez-Manoff points out,

Immigrants from the developing world to the developed tend to be less allergic than average. But the longer they reside in their adopted countries, the more allergic they become.”

In addition, small living microbes, exposed to infants through the birth canal can help develop an important community of living microbes in thier stomachs. Studies have shown a difference in children born via vagina birth (where their eyes, noses and mouths are exposed to a variety of microbes in the birth canal) as compared to those born via Cesarian section, have decreased rates of allergies. The degree to which microbes play a role in our lives is still a mystery to many scientists and physicians.

To give a little perspective on how important these microbes may be to our health, Michael Pollan wrote in his most recent book Cooked,

…Microbiologists discovered that nine of every ten cells in our bodies belong not to us, but to these microbial species (most of them residents of our gut), and that 99 percent of the DNA we’re carrying around belongs to those microbes.”

It’s hard for me to wrap my head around that number — 99% of the DNA in our body isn’t even ours! It begs the question, what role are these microbes playing in our appetites, the foods we crave, health and what happens when our environment changes?

Microbes may change how we digest food

In the book Zoobiquity, authors Barbara Natterson-Horowitz and Kathryn Bowers state, “They’re finding that these colonies of aliens [microbes] might not only influence how we digest and metabolize but even drive us to choose or crave certain foods.” Studies have found that rats who had one type of bacteria in their guts digested less calories per piece of food than the rats with a different bacteria. These discoveries could show us how focusing on developing certain types of bacteria in our stomachs could be a piece of solving the obesity epidemic.

Simiarily, antibiotics are routinely given to animals who don’t need it, not only to prevent and ward off disease, but because animals gain weight when they are on antibiotics. Some research suggests that this is in part a response to the antibiotics killing off the healthy bacteria residing in the livestock’s stomachs, resulting in subsequent weight gain.

Breast feeding delivers a good dose of bacteria

Another author Florence Williams discusses in her book BREASTS: A Natural and Unnatural History, that breast feeding provides healthy bacteria that “are not found anywhere else in nature” and can play a vital role in developing a healthy flora in a developing child’s digestive track. Williams raises an important question about taking antibiotics while breast feeding (a common practice for women who have mastitis). Can transferring those antibiotics to the infant, who doesn’t have the gut reserves to bounce back, harm their health later in life?

Not all women can have vaginal births or breast feed and many need to take antibiotics while breast feeding. This is not to make mothers feel bad about the choices they had to make, but rather to underscore the quiet and important symphony of bacteria that takes place before our first breath and after our first drink of mother’s milk.

Cultivating healthy microbes

What do we do when one of the most important functions of our bodies, isn’t something that can be felt or readily measured? I don’t know how many microbe species reside in my tummy. I can’t feel them. Nor can I take a test at my annual physical to see if the balance of these microbe is healthy.

Perhaps this underscores the need and importance to do the right thing when it comes to what we put in our bodies. The New York Times article I referenced at the beginning is one of many great pieces I’ve read that examine the role microbes are playing in our lives, and how going back to our roots and activities like farming can help us understand some of the hidden answers to what makes us truly healthy.

Pollan notes that we pass nearly 60 tons of food through our digestive system in our lifetimes.

Putting more time and energy into making sure that food is alive and full of nutrients, proteins, and yes creepy crawly bacteria, seems to be one of our best defenses against illness.

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