The Good Gut: Taking Control of Your Weight, Your Mood, and Your Long-term Health Paperback – Illustrated, May 3, 2016

It’s a very important book in which we for example realize how the Western food is destroying our health, especially because we there are having an unbalance with too little, if any, fruit and vegetables against the meat, whereby our good bacteria not are getting their needed nutrients for working.And in the book, it for example also is thoughtful to learn how we later in life will be influenced by how we were brought to world, that is by either the natural way or born at Caesarean section, because it makes difference in which bacteria the newborn’s gut then contains. Because as we read, the child that passes through the birth canal as the first bacteria in life are getting those from the inside of the mother, while the C-section born babies first meets bacteria from outside the mother, from the skin. And where researches now have discovered that there is a connection between the C-section babies and obesity, allergy, asthma, and more.And then in the book we read about how a doctor worked on solving this problem, which was for his coming baby which would come to world as a C-section baby, still would be getting precisely the same bacteria’s as if born the natural way. Parallel to this case we see that we are having something to think about in the future.One of the other new, or rediscovered, very important science knowledges to read about in the book, is the fecal microbiota transplant (FMT), stood transplant, bacteriotherapy. And this was stated in 2013 in Amsterdam on participants on whom the antibiotic therapy had been unsuccessful, and then on half of the patients was used FMT, and for the other half again antibiotic. By the FMT method 81% of the patients was cured, while only 31% by antibiotic.Then it was decided to for a second-time use FMT on this rest on 19 % of the patients who not was cured by the first time. And then this time 94% was cured, so totally for the patients on the FMT research 98% - 99% were cured. And then it was decided to stop the research and ask the research patient on antibiotics to also get through the FMT method.But as I used the word rediscovered was because in the book we read that the FMT method already 400 years ago was written down in China, and that by us, veterinarians have used FMT during more than a century, and furthermore, that in 1958 the Dr. Ben Eiseman then published how the method could cure pseudomembranous colitis.Throughout the book we again and again realize that it’s important to as late as possible in life, and as few times as possible to use antibiotic, as it kills bout good and bad bacteria, and that probably we never again are getting back all the same good bacteria which we had before we started on antibiotic.And late in the book, in the chapter 9, “Managing Your Internal Fermentation”, just before the advises with menus and recipes, we then get back a concentration of all of what until here have read about. Among other reading about how healthy it is to have a dog, and thereby have one more delivering place from where to probably get some helpful bacteria’s. And we read about how farmers, because of their contact with animals, plants, and the ground, then actually in their guts and stomachs contains more different bacteria’s than citizens. And the therefore its healthy for citizens to visit farmers, to have dog, plants, not to was hands too much, or clean departments too much and so on.All together an interesting book to read while it contains much rather new and important information.

The Good Gut, by Justin and Erica Sonnenburg PhDs, is about the importance of having a diverse gut microbiota, presented from a different point of view than Steven Gundry's Plant Paradox, which is about lectins breaching the gut barrier to cause inflammation and autoimmune disease. The Good Gut is more positively probiotic than Gundry's focus on avoiding lectins. The authors recommend not being obsessed with cleanliness, because a more diverse gut microbiota correlates with, if not promotes, better health, better immunity and better allergy resistance. They report that farm kids have fewer allergies than urban kids. Kids who have pets are healthier than kids without them. They describe the risks of C-birth if the baby does not get a good in-the-face dose of mommy's microbiota by not passing through the birth canal. They recommend swabbing a C-newborn with samples from the mom's birth canal to give the baby an advance kickstart to resist disease (this advice is qualified by a frequent pass-the-buck refrain to consult a personal physician). They advise breast feeding as much as possible, even if not 100 per cent. Mother's milk contains complex oligosaccharides not found in formula which the baby cannot digest, destined to feed the baby's guts instead. The authors explain the dangers of antibiotics which destroy good microbes along with the bad, upsetting gut ecological balance, opening the door to opportunistic invasion. They recommend defensively consuming lots of fermented probiotics such as yogurt, buttermilk, miso, sourdough bread and exotic teas called kefir and kombucha. Their book mentions a related citizen science project called The American Gut Project, directed by a research group at UC San Diego, which returns an analysis of personal microbiota for $99.This book has led me to question whether Steven Gundry may not have gone a bit overboard in avoidance of lectins such as by excluding all New World plants. A healthy diverse population of microbiota, according to the Sonnenburgs, should naturally control pathogens too, with the good ones crowding out the bad. A healthy thick layer of mucus nourished by prebiotic oligosaccarides provides a natural firewall. The authors have persuaded me to restore some foods to my diet formerly ruled out by Gundry, such as beans (but not wheat), if pressure cooked to destroy the dreaded lectins. I have learned that I should consume more fermented probiotic foods, avoid antibiotics and antibiotic products except in case of dire emergency and not always bother to wash hands after hormetic contact with a friend or a dog.

I truly appreciate the Sonnenburgs priceless, wonderfully detailed, informative book that was easily digestible- yuk yuk- by a relative layman. It has absolutely helped me clarify some details of exactly how these complex interactions occur in the gut that I was not understanding even after a 18 year love affair with the microbiome and nutrition!I am also certain that they are wonderful parents whose children love them and have benefited greatly from their care and concern.However, much of my life’s work has been in child development and I would caution against some of the more extreme advice on literally never allowing children to have conventional sweets in the house, to eat fast food, or even to have snacks that aren’t from their leftovers in the lunchbox (as someone who personally hates leftovers and wilting food- YUCK!).This level of extreme food control leaves a child ripe for eating disorders on either side of the spectrum: severe restriction that we see in anorexia or, conversely, binge eating with or without purging. In fact, although I am in no position to diagnose anyone from reading one book, I would warn that some of what I’m reading here suggests orthorexia.Again, I find this book incredibly useful and genius. My own children were both breast-fed for two years each and grew up on kefir, homemade chicken liver pate, fermented cod liver oil, homemade yogurt etc… but also got to have Christmas cookies and Halloween candy and drive-through french fries. Perhaps children on a more strict diet would have better gut flora, but we need to holistically look at the entire child and their psychological well-being vis-à-vis the world of junk food that we do live in. Deprivation will largely backfire.