A Compelling Argument As To Why You Need More Germs

“In our modern effort to eradicate disease, we pop antibiotics like candy, apply hand sanitizers with abandon, and gargle mouthwash by the gallon. But this carpet-bombing of germs takes a huge toll on good microbes as well as bad. The March/April issue of The Saturday Evening Post, on newsstands now, reveals recent research pointing to medical problems including asthma, obesity, and chronic sinusitis that might be caused by the absence of certain microbiota in our bodies.”  (From a press release about the article Why We Need Germs.)

What if the bacteria in our body was a determining factor in chronic conditions?  Would you try to get more bacteria into your body?  Would you stop doing things to kill the bacteria?  Would this change our eating habits?

This is a fascinating article by The Saturday Evening Post, it shares some research that might explain why two people can have the same food habits and one be skinny and one be fat.  (A frustrating thing for many of us.)

You can even learn about a crowdsourcing project that will take your feces and tell you the bacteria in your gut.  

In the meantime, you might want to eat more asparagus and garlic.  Yummy!  And, be less stressed out.

For instance, Bacteroidetes—the microbes linked to slimness—proliferate in the presence of fructans, a form of fructose found in asparagus, artichokes, garlic, and onions, among other foods, notes microbiologist Andrew Gewirtz of Georgia State University. A diet high in fructans might support a good crop of slimming Bacteroidetes. On the other hand, he notes, stress decreases the abundance of Bacteroidetes, suggesting one more way stress causes obesity.