Your Gut: The Secret "Second Brain" Controlling Your Health

Imagine a bustling city inside your belly - 40 trillion microbial residents working 24/7 to control your health, mood, and even food cravings. This is your gut microbiome, and it holds surprising power over your entire wellbeing.

1 Your Gut: More Than Just Digestion

While we've known about gut bacteria for decades, new research reveals they influence:

There is a new word in vogue these days in the booming market of health products i.e 'probiotic' or 'Gut healthy'. Do we even realise that this new craze about focussing on the gut has its roots going back thousands of years. Ayurveda, an ancient science of treating the mind, body and soul always had its foundation in keeping the Gut strong. Hippocrates, father of medicine's most popular adage, 'All diseases begin in the gut' is a most appropriate proponent of this connection between modern medicine and Ayurveda.

2 The Microscopic World Within Us

The talk about Gut focusses on the first organisms that evolved when the earth was formed. The microorganisms including the bacteria, viruses, fungi which were the first signs of life on earth are the ones that inhabit our inner core which plays the main role in the well-being of our human body. This collection of microorganisms form their own world called the microbiome. The microbiome is present in many parts of the body but the largest collection of over 30 trillion bacteria is in the gut. These seemingly microscopic organisms with their magnanimous army are a functional 'organ' in itself which can have an influence on an array of outcomes in the body.

3 The Gut-Brain Connection

The range of outcomes influenced by these commensals or pathogens can affect the entire functioning of our body. The stronger our gut health is the better will be the functioning of our mind. In fact 90% of the serotonin gets produced in the Gut. That is the power of 'Gut Feeling'. The Gut becomes our second brain. The human microbiome is constantly evolving in response to host of factors. Factors such as age, nutrition, lifestyle, hormonal changes, inherited genes, medication and underlying disease are major determinants of the human microbiome at any given point in time.

4 Threats to Our Inner Ecosystem

The injudicious intake of antibiotics (anti- biota) and other drugs can disrupt the Gut microbiome. Conditions such as asthma, atopy, childhood obesity, and autism spectrum have been correlated with excess antibiotic use and a resulting alteration in the microbiome in childhood. Microbiome of an individual is unique just like the fingerprints which are unique to each individual. So, it is very important to live in harmony with ones microbiome, our Inner World.

5 Does Diet Modification Hold the Power to Reverse Lifestyle Diseases?

In an Age, where we are rapidly being run down by a variety of lifestyle related health issues, like diabetes, hypertension, thyroid problems, cancer, fatty liver(even in non-alcoholics), sleep disorders; it is time that we realise that something very basic and common to all of us is the cause behind it.

Human body, since its birth and even before birth is nourished by the food that you give to it. Food and its nutrients have the power to affect the expression of genes in the DNA of each individual, as it is studied in Nutrigenetics. That goes to say, though a person can be born with the genes which increases his chance of having a particular disease, but the right nutrients that he consumes and other environmental factors have the power to modify the genetic outcome.

India, today is facing the dual challenge of undernutrition as well as overnutrition. With India emerging as one of the growing economies of the world, the parity to buy food is going to increase and hence comes the need to ensure conscious eating across generations. In Hippocrates words again "Let food be thy medicine".