Attention

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not represent our advertisers

Wednesday, December 04, 2013

5 Ways To Get Good Bacteria In Your Stomach

We have more bacteria in our gut than cells in our body.

As foreign as it sounds, the word microbiome may soon be part of the mainstream lexicon. The term refers to the microbes or bacteria that naturally inhabit the body from the surface of your skin to your gut. We tend to think of microbes as bad—pathogens that need to be killed—but new research suggests that storing scores of them is paramount to our health and metabolism.

"We have 100 trillion microbes in our gut — more bacteria than cells in the body," says Frank Lipman, MD, the founder of Eleven Eleven Wellness in Manhattan. " They aid in digestion and detoxification, help support our immune system, and manufacture key vitamins, among other functions. Western medicine is catching on to the importance of all the bacteria in our bodies, especially in our gut. In Functional Medicine we've been manipulating this microbiome for some time, but it's primarily been guesswork."

"Understanding these microbes is the future of medicine," he said.

More

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

All bacteria is good.Someday,most likely not in our lifetimes,the geniuses will find that out.Basically it regards survival of the fittest all the way down to the tiniest microbe.Were it not for that process none of us would exist.Any effort to halt that process is futile.