Gut microbes: The miniscule laborers in the human body

Title

Gut microbes: The miniscule laborers in the human body

Creator

Sarojini S.

Description

Our physical and mental being largely depends on our dietary intake and the manipulations done on food by the gut bacterial flora in the digestive tract. Scientists have discovered a lot of previously unknown facts about the gut microbiota. They have been found to play a role in manifold processes, such as digestion, nutrient conversion, absorption, detoxification, and so on. In fact, people who consume plant-based and animal-based diets will have separate array of gut microbes. The composition of these microbiota will drastically change during a switch to a new diet. Deficiencies of adequate beneficial gut bacterial flora have been associated with many ailments. As there are billions of such microbes in our body, the number of bacterial genes could far outnumber the human genes in our body. The role of gut microbes in the proper functioning of the human digestive and nervous systems and its implications will be discussed in this chapter. 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Source

Diet, Microbiome and Health, pp. 1-31.

Date

2018-01-01

Publisher

Elsevier

Subject

Autism; Bacteroidetes; Brain-gut-microbiota axis; Butyrates; Fecal microbiota transplant; Firmicutes; Gut microbiota; Lactic acid bacteria

Coverage

Sarojini S., Department of Life Sciences, Christ University, Bangalore, Karnataka, India

Rights

Restricted Access

Relation

ISBN: 978-012811440-7; 978-012811492-6

Format

Online

Language

English

Type

Book chapter

Identifier

https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-811440-7.00001-6

https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85063264892&doi=10.1016%2fB978-0-12-811440-7.00001-6&partnerID=40&md5=05ba66117171a21d22aadbe7a8418ab6