A little background. The GI tract has between 300-1000 different types of bacteria. Of these, 30-40 take up almost all the space. The flora are very interactive with our other microorganisms, our viruses, our immune system, our DNA and many of the parasites we used to be infected with, but no longer are.
The immune system developed all sorts of protections against these parasites, but since they no longer inhabit us, the immune system can be confused, and start to attack our bodies in several ways.
An even greater unknown are the viruses that inhabit our GI tract. Vast in type and number, the majority of them are bacteriophages, that attack bacteria, and thus also strongly impact the system.
But figuring out all these interactions, and how they function in the several completely different GI floras we have in our lifetimes is going to be decades, or more, in the discovery.
Get root!
Nah, I guess that’s another thread.
"From past genomic studies, we have learned that a mind-boggling multitude of different kinds of benign bacteria inhabit our intestines and that these populations can vary almost infinitely from one human being to the next. We know that the kind of food we eat is important to our health and we know that having the right bacteria in our intestines is important in digesting our food properly, but we still do not know how our individual variations in gut bacteria might influence more specific health issues. In particular, we do not know how these bacteria influence how the substances we eat affect our organ systems."