If certain gut bacteria promote good health, it makes sense to eat a diet rich in the nutrients that make those microbes happy.
It turns out that our gut bacteria manipulate the immune system to keep things from getting out of hand.
I had the chance to sit down with Carl and ask him about life, gut bacteria, and the public's relationship with science.
I know for gut bacteria, you largely get the myriad species that your mother had.
C. scolymus also seems to have a bifidogenic effect on beneficial gut bacteria.
Antibiotics seem to reduce immune system activity as a result of killing off the normal gut bacteria.
So, they tend to do a whole lot of sitting around sleeping, letting gut bacteria break down their leafy meals.
The protective factor, a gut bacterium, was transmissible, he said.
Blaser's point is that if one species of gut bacteria is disappearing, others are, too.
The gut bacteria make vitamin K and are killed by antibiotics.