15 Dec Gut Flora and Immune Health
One key player in immune health is the gut, a part of the body that is constantly exposed to toxins and foreign antigens, such as those from food and microbes. According to nutrition and immune expert Simin Meydani, DVM, PhD, director of the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging and the Nutritional Immunology Laboratory at Tufts University, who spoke at a December 4, 2009, Tufts seminar, “The gut is the largest immune organ in the body, accounting for 25% of the immune cells in the body that provide 50% of the body’s immune response. There are more than 400 species of bacteria residing in the gut, and they have symbiotic relationships with your body.” Meydani called the gut flora “the forgotten body organ” because of its vital yet underappreciated health functions.
“There are 100 trillion bacteria in our intestines. The assembly of intestinal bacteria is called the intestinal flora. They form an ecosystem like a flower garden,” reported Haruji Sawada, director of the Yakult Central Institute, at the Yakult International Nutrition and Health Conference on May 17, 2010, in Tokyo (which this writer attended as part of a Yakult-sponsored journalists’ tour). In fact, there are 10 times more intestinal bacteria than there are human cells in the body. Humans develop their intestinal flora after birth, not in the womb. Thus, newborn babies’ gastrointestinal tracts are sterile but quickly become colonized by microorganisms after birth. During babies’ first year of life, the intestinal microbiota begin to develop to resemble that of an adult.
International Probiotics Association (https://www.internationalprobiotics.org/)
Canadian Centre for Human Microbiome and Probiotic Research (https://www.crdc-probiotics.ca/)