The world that everyone once competed to define as "globalized" is experiencing a systemic crisis, but there is an even more important “ecological” crisis that is slowly eroding our health. We humans are not the protagonists of this drama, but the trillions of microorganisms that live in our intestines. The intestinal microbiome is under attack, and its defense could be a real war for survival.
The pervasive influence of the gut microbiome
Dr. James Kinross, an experienced surgeon and senior lecturer in colorectal surgery at Imperial College London, is certain of this. For him, most of the problems plaguing global health are closely linked to the gut microbiome and its devastation in the modern world.
The problem is that our lifestyles over the last hundred years have had disastrous effects on our internal ecosystem and, consequently, on our immune system. The excessive use of antibiotics, particularly in agriculture, has significantly altered the composition and abundance of certain bacteria in the microbiome of some populations.
At the same time, increasingly "stereotypical" diets based on hyper-processed foods and low fiber content, the food marshes and increasing urbanization are having a devastating impact on our microbiome.
Domestic climate change
If the fragile ecosystem of intestinal bacteria is compromised at an early age, for example due to a poor diet or overexposure to antibiotics, the microbiome can become essentially "scarred" and struggle to return to its original state.
To address this gut crisis, Kinross suggests the need for a paradigm shift. It is necessary for scientists, doctors and health authorities to understand the importance of the gut microbiome and its fundamental role in the global health problems we face.
In particular, he believes that protecting gut microbes is so important to everyone's health, happiness, and future that we should consider seeking legal protection for the gut microbiome.
An almost "heretical" paradigm, in times of extreme geopolitics, which suggests to us for the umpteenth time to defend ourselves from within.
Change comes from afar
While science, technology and communication run ever faster, to be able to really say we have to think about changing our relationship with tiny bacteria in a progressing world.
Understand once and for all that bacteria are fundamental allies of our health.
How to balance the gut microbiome?
We can choose more fermented foods like yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, kimchi and kombucha in our diet, because they can introduce beneficial bacteria into the gut. We have to limit antibiotics, as much as we respect their usefulness when necessary, because they can literally destroy the microbiome. Sleep, regular physical activity and meditation can help keep your gut microbiome healthy.
Only then can we begin to put peace in body and mind, and have more energy to fix the rest of the world. The future depends on us, even in this.
