How the Gut Cures and Creates DiseaseHow the Gut Cures and Creates Disease
Gut Health

How the Gut Cures and Creates Disease

The viruses, fungi, and bacteria that live inside and upon us are essential to critical functions in our bodies.
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By Amy Denney
Updated:
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This is part 2 in “Cultivating Our Gut Microbiome to Stifle Disease”

We might be on the verge of a new medical paradigm if what scientists are discovering about the microbiome ever makes it into the doctor’s office.

In this series, “Cultivating Our Gut Microbiome to Stifle Disease,” we’ll share how the latest developments on this medical frontier are transforming our approaches to illness and offering new strategies to heal and prevent disease.

The viruses, fungi, and bacteria that live inside and upon us are essential to critical functions in our bodies. Microbes in our mouths help us create nitric oxide, for example, helping keep heart disease at bay by ensuring our blood flows smoothly. This microbial community, our microbiome, is barely understood, but what we do know tells us that it is key to preventing and curing many diseases. Nowhere is this flora of microscopic life more crucial than in our gut.

Gut health is about much more than basic digestion. The beneficial bacteria that live within the gut help us digest foods in our large intestines and turn nutrients into metabolites that influence both our physical and mental health.