What role do bacteria play in the gut?

The bacteria that live in the gut are involved in the digestion process and work to keep the gut and immune system healthy. Integrative gastroenterologist Robynne Chutkan, MD, discusses the role of bacteria in the gut.

Transcript

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Bacteria in our gut are intimately involved in digestion. They help to break down the food so that we can absorb it and use it for energy.

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They keep the gut healthy. They help to train the immune system to distinguish between friend and foe.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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The trillions of bacteria that live in and on our bodies mostly live in our gut. In fact, there are over a billion bacteria

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in just one drop of fluid in your colon alone. And they're there for a reason. Bacteria in our gut are intimately

00:34

involved in digestion. They help to break down the food so that we can absorb it and use it for energy. They keep the gut healthy.

00:40

They help to train the immune system to distinguish between friend and foe to, again, keep us healthy so that we don't overreact

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to benign, harmless things, and when something dangerous comes along, like a serious bacterial infection or a viral infection, our immune system

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is primed and ready to react. When it comes to the microbiome, all bacteria are not created equally, unfortunately. So there is this whole ratio between good and bad bacteria.

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And having an ideal balance between good and bad is really essential for overall health and for gut health. One of the problems that we see is

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that a lot of the products we use-- antibacterial products, antibiotics-- they preferentially kill off the good bacteria, and they lead to incredible imbalance

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in gut bacteria so that you have overrepresentation of some of the harmful species and underrepresentation of some

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of the helpful species. [AUDIO LOGO]