Gut Health Explained

Explore the human digestive tract to learn how this landscape shapes the microbial community-including such an extensively folded small intestine that its absorptive capacity is 600 times more than it would be as a straight tube. Learn how we first acquire our personal set of microbes, and how dozens of factors create each person's unique microbiome, as unique as fingerprints.

Like any other scientific field, the study of the microbiome begins and ends with the scientific method. But the scientific method is a slow process, and the microbiome contains trillions of organisms, thousands of species, and unknown numbers of subspecies. Learn how Koch's postulates and the work of Dr. William Hanage at Harvard affect the study of the human microbiome.

Since following the scientific method of research can be a slow process and consumers want answers about the human microbiome right now, it's easy for us to fall prey to pseudoscience. Discover how to recognize pseudoscience and its often popular terms that aren't recognized by the scientific community, such as the ubiquitous "leaky gut."

Though it's common for influencers and the popular media to label microbes as "good" or "bad," science doesn't bear this out. Each of us has a unique gut environment, and a particular microbe could be beneficial for one person but a pathogen for someone else. Although the picture is not yet complete, explore several relationships that have been discovered between microbes and disease.

Learn about the innate and adaptive immune systems that work to maintain gut homeostasis and protect against pathogens. These two systems work in very different ways, but they accomplish the same, larger goal. You'll also explore the significant relationship between the gut immune system and that of the body as a whole.