Bacteria and the Human Body

This short review of the impacts of bacteria on the body is absolutely fascinating. It’s also a topic that Twyla is passionate about, having devoured every book, article, and online discussion she can get her hands on.

Introducing and maintaining beneficial bacteria in our kids from, literally, the beginning of their lives will be the single biggest determining factor in their lifelong health. It’s also why we treat antibiotics with extreme caution, using them only as a last resort.

It is becoming increasingly clear that different bacteria provide people with different advantages and disadvantages. All over the world, teams of scientists are looking at how bacteria affect the folks they live in. Certain bacteria have been linked to the incidence of stomach ulcers, but take away those bacteria with antibiotics, and young people get more asthma, hay fever, allergies and eczema.

We try to foster good gut health in ourselves and in our kids primarily through the things that we can directly influence, like diet, as opposed to the things we can’t influence as much, like environment (i.e. hands in mouths, etc).

Granted, all of my understanding of the subject comes second-hand from discussions with Twyla but we already know that diet affects behavior and, with some studies linking diet with autism ^[1], it can’t be too much of a leap to start talking about bacterial health and its affects on child development ^[2] and personality.

Implications of this research go even further when you consider the reference to geographical differences.

…a person who grows up in Argentina and another who grows up in northern Alaska tend to acquire different bacteria … these differences seem to matter…

It reinforces the ‘eat local’ mantra pushed by the slow-food/organic/bio-dynamic communities.

Notes:
[1] I realize the link between diet and autism is controversial as it seems to presume that autism is, then, preventable but, nevertheless, the studies exist and the research seems to be continuing.
[2] While not related to a discussion of bacteria, I thought this article about ADHD’s (non)existence was interesting too especially when you start drawing the links between all of these topics.