Follow Your Gut
How the Bacteria in Your Stomach Steer Your Health, Mood and More
Published on 9. April 2015
Book
Hardback
128 pages
978-1-4711-3890-4 (ISBN)
Description
Part of the TED series: Follow Your Gut
Today we study the brain with painstaking detail. But we largely ignore what might prove to be the most important part of our body: the trillions of microbes that live inside us, especially in our gut. Increasingly, it looks like the harmless bacteria we each have - or lack - may hold the key to our most vexing health issues, including obesity, allergies, asthma and digestive problems. Different people - even those in the same ethnic group, geographic region and immediate family - may have up to a 90% difference in the contents of our gut. (Compare this with our DNA, where all humans, worldwide, are 99.99% the same.) Evidence shows that small changes in the microbes present (altered by antibiotics, diet, geographic region, and so on) may affect weight, likelihood of disease and even psychological factors like risk-taking behaviour.
Knight and Buhler explore the previously unseen world inside our bodies, in dynamic, accessible prose geared towards a general audience. With a practical eye towards deeper knowledge and better decisions, the book includes a detailed tour of our "micro-biome" as well as an exploration of the known effects of antibiotics, probiotics, diet choices, birth method, and access to livestock on our children's lifelong health. The book will guide readers on how to learn about their own "microbiome" and take steps towards understanding and improving their health, using the latest research as their guide.
Today we study the brain with painstaking detail. But we largely ignore what might prove to be the most important part of our body: the trillions of microbes that live inside us, especially in our gut. Increasingly, it looks like the harmless bacteria we each have - or lack - may hold the key to our most vexing health issues, including obesity, allergies, asthma and digestive problems. Different people - even those in the same ethnic group, geographic region and immediate family - may have up to a 90% difference in the contents of our gut. (Compare this with our DNA, where all humans, worldwide, are 99.99% the same.) Evidence shows that small changes in the microbes present (altered by antibiotics, diet, geographic region, and so on) may affect weight, likelihood of disease and even psychological factors like risk-taking behaviour.
Knight and Buhler explore the previously unseen world inside our bodies, in dynamic, accessible prose geared towards a general audience. With a practical eye towards deeper knowledge and better decisions, the book includes a detailed tour of our "micro-biome" as well as an exploration of the known effects of antibiotics, probiotics, diet choices, birth method, and access to livestock on our children's lifelong health. The book will guide readers on how to learn about their own "microbiome" and take steps towards understanding and improving their health, using the latest research as their guide.
More details
Persons
Dr. Rob Knight is an associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Colorado Boulder, an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Colorado Boulder, and an assistant professor in the Computational Biosciences Program at the University of Colorado Denver. Brendan Buhler is an award-winning science writer whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, California Magazine and Sierra Magazine. His story on Rob Knight's work was selected for the 2012 edition of The Best American Science and Nature Writing.