Thursday, April 21, 2011

Human Gut Types - What Will They Discover Next!

I read a fascinating article today about a very interesting discovery: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/21/science/21gut.html

Basically, the article says that they have discovered that human beings fall into three distinct categories based on the types of bacteria they have in their guts. Some have more of one type of bacteria, while in other people other bacterias dominate... but they fall into three distinct camps.

As a person who has more food allergies than really should be possible, this sort of thing fascinates me. It makes me want to call up the doctor and find out what my guts are like bacterially speaking!

It also makes me wonder if there might not be some correlation between these gut types and the sorts of diets that people do well on. I always find the "diet wars" to be a source of much entertainment (mostly because the vast majority of Americans live on a diet of cheeseburgers, fries and milkshakes, so pretty much ANY eating plan would be an improvement.) But shitty American diets notwithstanding, I do think it's clear that different people do better on different diets. Some people do great with lots of grains, others seem to do better with lean protein and veggies.

I've heard of the blood type diet, but I'm not sure that makes much sense to me. But gut types... now that's something I wanna know more about.

OK... that's it... just thought it was interesting.

1 comment :

  1. So here's the REALLY fascinating part - fecal transplants. " All you need is a bottle of saline, a 2-quart enema bag, and one standard kitchen blender"... and a relative's stool.

    http://www.slate.com/id/2282768/

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