The gut microbiome!

The term gut microbiome is a catch-all term for the massive community of microbes that inhabit our gastrointestinal tract. And “massive” is far from hyperbole: An estimated 30-100 trillion bacteria comprise the microbiota, collectively weighing around 4.5 pounds! These bacteria include a mixture of commensal (neutrally existing), probiotic (mutually beneficial, also called symbiotic), and pathogenic (harmful to us) organisms, and can consist of any of 35,000 species known to inhabit the human gut. Every person’s gut contains approximately 400 to 1,500 different bacterial species of the possible 35,000 that are well adapted to survive in the human gastrointestinal tract, although thirty to forty species of bacteria will dominate an individual’s gut microbiota, accounting for about 99% of the microorganisms present in our gut.

Our guts are inhabited by other microorganisms besides bacteria, including archaea, viruses and single-cell eukaryotes including fungi (like yeast) and protists.

#DrSarahBallantyne #Nutrivore