7.4: Your Gut Microbiome

Another feature of the large intestine is that it is where an enormous quantity of bacteria live. That may seem kind of gross to discover that your gut is home to more bacteria than there are cells in your body, but most of these bacteria are harmless, and some are even beneficial. You may have heard about probiotics and prebiotics in the news or seen them listed on food labels. Probiotics are defined as live bacteria that provide health benefits to the host (us), such as warding off diarrhea and reducing the effects of lactose intolerance. On the other hand, prebiotics is a type of fiber in some foods, which serves as a food source for probiotics. An analogy is to think of your gut as a farm. The probiotics are farm animals; the more farm animals on the farm, the better the farm is doing. But to keep the farm animals in good condition, you have to feed them. The hay you feed them is the prebiotics. We call this ‘farm’ your gut biome; the more and the healthier the probiotics, the healthier your gut biome. Foods such as yogurt contain probiotics, which can add to your gut biome. Some foods are prebiotics, like onions, bananas, and oats, which can feed your gut biome. A strong gut biome is thought to provide a host of health benefits.

Watch the Video on Pro/PreBiotics

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