For most of the previous century, when people thought about bacteria and other microbes, they considered them dangerous or pathogenic. Indeed, in the early part of the 20th century, Americans were rightly concerned about the real risk of dying from tuberculosis, typhoid fever, cholera and other diseases caused by bacterial infection.
After the advent of penicillin and other antibacterial medicines, diseases of later life such as cancer and heart disease became the big American health fears – yet we never quite gave up the feeling that bacteria is generally bad.
However, in recent decades, doctors and researchers have taken another look at the bacteria that live in and on our bodies – known as our “microbiota.” Scientists discovered that more than 100 trillion bacteria inhabit the human digestive system. Put another way, if you lined up your microbiota end-to-end, they would reach the moon. What do these little critters do for us that causes our bodies to host so many of them?
We’re learning that they act like a filter between us and the outside world, allowing for balance between health and disease. Our microbiota protects us from infiltrating pathogens, enhances our immune response, aids in digestion and influences neurotransmitters. Just as we’re discovering what microbiota does for us, we’re also uncovering what we have done to it.
Stanford Health Library offers resources for learning more about the workings of gut microbiota, what we’ve done to it and how we can enhance it.
“The Good Gut: Taking Control of Your Weight, Your Mood and Your Long-Term Health” (Penguin, 2015), co-written by husband-and-wife Stanford researchers Justin and Erica Sonnenburg, brings science to everyday understanding. “The Good Gut” features more than 25 recipes and a seven-day meal plan for nourishing your gut’s good bacteria.
The e-book “The Human Microbiota: How Microbial Communities Affect Health and Disease” (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013) focuses on what modern tools in molecular microbiology are revealing about human microbiota and how specific microbial communities can be associated with either beneficial effects or diseases.
“Nutrition, Gut Microbiota and Immunity: Therapeutic Targets for IBD” (Karger, 2014) provides a much more technical discussion of the gut microbiota and how it relates to inflammatory bowel disease.
In addition to housing these books, Stanford Health Library hosts free programs on health-related topics. To view a list of upcoming programs, visit the library website at healthlibrary.stanford.edu. All programs are also available via live webcast and recorded footage.
Jean Johnson is a librarian at Stanford Health Library. For more information, call 725-8100, email [email protected] or visit healthlibrary.stanford.edu.
