Imbalances, or what are conservatively defined as differences in microflora, between the afflicted and unafflicted, are implicated in serious and disabling health issues. The most impactful of these issues are autism, and obesity. It is easy to imagine that the skinny folks who eat what most consider to be a terrible diet have a wonderful internal factory of a microbiome that is cleaning up after their careless ways. While on the other hand, the obese person taking up space next to them on the subway may be doing everything possible to be healthy and minding their calories, and yet the flora in their guts is undermining their every healthy mouthful and calorie burned.

Some may prefer an alternative to ignoring little bacteria which are managing our love of pastries. Like eating live active culture yogurt, fecal transplants are a thing now, and studies have followed the effects of implanting the fecal matter from thin people with a good range of microflora into obese people who have a narrower range of microflora including types that are very detrimental to wellbeing. Some who are satisfied with this alternative practice just stop there, and there are people who regularly implant the fecal matter of healthy thin people into their guts, without realizing they can probably achieve the same effects by sourcing a wide range of microbiota and keeping them flourishing with a prebiotic type of dietary fiber.

Earlier studies were more hesitant to open up with boldly worded declarations about the role of the gut microbiome for human health. We have come a long way from hesitating to understand how our health is impacted by unseen billions of organisms which reside within our digestive system, and which are directly responsible for our health and wellbeing.