The Gut, Microbes and Prebiotics

I read two engaging books last week (finishing both this weekend) that were very engaging. It was hard to put them down! Usually I try to read a chapter a day, but I was easily doing multiple chapters because I was hooked. I’ll write about the first book today since it is in keeping with my previous blog post on Making Visible the Invisible, except that instead of molecules it’s mainly about microbes.

The English translation of the book is titled “Gut: The Inside Story of the Body’s Most Underrated Organ”. The author, Giulia Enders, is a German student doing her Ph.D. in medical research. Giulia’s book came to be after she won a Science Slam (the video is fun and went viral!) based on her knowledge of gastroenterology. Giulia has a great sense of humor and it comes out in her writing. The book is accompanied by equally humorous illustrations with cartoons by her sister Jill.

There are so many interesting things I learned from the book. (If only more textbooks were like this!) Besides a journey through the digestive system culminating in the gut, a large portion of the book is dedicated to discussing the microbes in our digestive system. Who would have thought that gut microbiota could be so fascinating! While I had heard the statistic that the bacteria that live in us outnumber our cells by an order of magnitude, I did not realize how varied and interesting they are! They are also rather unique to the individual so I expect we’ll soon be having bacterial records similar to DNA records to identify perpetrators involved in criminal activity. There’s also a fascinating section connecting the gut and the nervous system – those “gut feelings” that you get, they might really originate in the gut. The gut might even be a second brain of sorts, at least the way Giulia describes it.

The last section on the book covers Antibiotics, Probiotics and Prebiotics. As someone with research interests in the chemistry of the origin of life, I use the word “prebiotic” in a different context. This is why I don’t tell people I study “prebiotic” chemistry, because then I would get asked all sorts of questions unrelated to my actual knowledge in chemistry. I did learn useful definitions for these three terms from the author. In particular, one can think of prebiotics as the nutrients needed to feed the “good” bacteria in one’s gut (i.e., the ones that don’t make us sick). Turns out that garlic and onions, two things that I love eating, are good prebiotics – as are several other vegetables that I also enjoy.

Some researchers in the origin-of-life or astrobiology fields look to extreme environments to examine how different “life” may have evolved possibly giving us clues as to what to look for when we send probes to other suitable planets or their moons. These unique “harsh” environments have a range of interesting microbes. But it turns out we don’t have to go very far to look for unique microbes – they’re living in our gut!

I highly recommend Giulia’s book – you’ll never look at your digestive system, gut, feces (yes, they are organized and classified!), microbes, or think about how what you eat is “processed” in the same way. And you’ll enjoy learning new things! What could be better?