In bugs we thrive

Lara Dugas, an Honorary Professor in the Department of Human Biology at UCT, delves straight into the gut of the matter.

- LARA DUGAS

It’s 2020, and if you haven’t either been prescribed a probiotic or heard someone talking about their gut microbiome then you’ve probably been living on a remote island, or maybe just taking the lockdown a little too seriously.

But if you were on an island, I bet one of your fellow islanders would’ve tried to tell you to eat the coconut husks because it would be good for your gut microbiome. Setting aside the temptation to gnaw on some nondigestible fibre, the question arises: are they right?

First, let’s tackle some of the big terms. What is the gut microbiome? What is it made up of? Is it unique to us? Why all the big fuss, and can your gut microbiome protect you from developing type 2 diabetes?

WHAT ARE GUT MICROBIOTA?

This is really the fun part for me, especially when I discover that I might be talking to a germaphobe. This may come as surprise to you, but in your gut alone there are 10 times (yes 10 times) as many microbial cells as there are human cells in your body. Strictly speaking, this makes you more microbe than human.

In fact, we don’t just have a gut microbiome, but we are literally covered from head to toe, inside and out, by different microbial communities. You’ve got your skin microbiome, your lung microbiome, and basically “the-everything-human” microbiome. The really important thing about all of these microbiomes, though, is that disruptions in any of these specific communities are linked to worse health outcomes.