Trust Your Gut: The Profound Implications of the Microbiome for Our Health
The transformative potential of the microbiome.
I’ve always considered the saying “trust your gut” to be a directive to respond to one’s innate instincts. However, as a gastroenterology clinical nurse specialist, I now recognize there can be a literal meaning to that phrase with the recent discovery of the microbiome and its implications for our health. The microbiome has yielded significant recent research discoveries for health promotion and has the potential to radically transform our diagnosis and management of disease and health disorders.
Microbiologists have actually suggested the microbiome be considered a human organ. Our CE article in AJN’s November issue, Current and Emerging Applications of Fecal Microbiota Transplantation, highlights how a disrupted microbiome, manifesting as Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) infection that is nonresponsive to first-line antibiotic treatment, can be effectively and quickly treated with transplantation of a diverse, microbiota-rich stool from a healthy donor.
But what is the microbiome?
The microbiome consists of the trillions of microorganisms […]
