Here, Dmitry Alexeev, from personalised health technology company Atlas Biomed, helps sort through six of the most unhelpful misconceptions around gut health…1. All bacteria’s bad for youNot all bacteria is bad bacteria (Thinkstock/PA)Many of us fear bacteria because we associate them with disease-causing pathogens. Your gut microbiome helps regulate your metabolism, break down food and protect the body against harmful infections, along with a host of other important functions – we couldn’t really live without it. “A huge number of them [gut bacteria] reside in our small and large intestines— the latter is particularly dark and damp, kind of like a rainforest,” says Alexeev. When you eat probiotics, you’re not actually feeding your microbiome: first of all, probiotics themselves need external support, like dietary fibre, to survive.

Source: Irish Examiner March 28, 2018 08:26 UTC