Gut, by Gulia Enders, a book review

Gut, The Inside Story of the Body's Most Underrated Organ -- a Book Review by Ruth Baigent

​In 2002, gene sequencing technology enabled science to identify microbes according to their genetic blueprint. This lifted the restriction on identifying microbes by culturing them on a Petri dish. Bacteria can now be identified dead from their DNA – for instance in the human stool.

Most gut bacteria do not bloom away from their native anaerobic environment and cannot be examined and identified by the old methods, so we are still ignorant of more than 60% of gut bacteria. (p236) Identification by genetic blueprint has enabled medical science to move into bacteria-related digestive health research in a big way. An explosion of new research (much of it seemingly using mice) has led the world of medicine to some dramatic re-thinkings on the role of bacteria in our lives: “we are gradually decoding processes which we used to believe were part of our inescapable destiny”, says Enders.(p204)

Over the last couple of years, there has been a proliferation of books like Gut which tend to be research led and written by fascinated and enthusiastic biologists and medical research doctors thriving on the possibilities for understanding that new research is enabling. Ten years ago, scientists tended to think that all humans had the same bacteria in their systems. New tests show us that this is far from true: our digestive systems are populated by billions of bacteria, 1000+ species, “plus minority populations of viruses and yeasts, as well as fungi and various other single celled organisms”(p140) which are uniquely our own.[i]

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