Our gut is almost as important to us as our brain, yet we know very
little about how it works. Gut: The Inside Story is an entertaining,
informative tour of the digestive system from the moment we raise a
tasty morsel to our lips until the moment our body surrenders the
remnants to the toilet bowl. No topic is too lowly for the author's
wonder and admiration, from the careful choreography of breaking wind to
the precise internal communication required for a cleansing vomit. Along
the way, the author provides practical advice, such as the best ways to
sit on the toilet to have a comfortable bowel movement, how clean your
kitchen should be for optimum gut health, and how different laxatives
work. She tells stories of gut bacteria that can lead to obesity,
autoimmune diseases, or even suicide, and she discusses the benefits of
dietary supplements, such as probiotics.
This book is a fascinating primer for anyone interested in how our ideas
about the gut are changing in the light of cutting-edge scientific
research. In the words of the author, "We live in an era in which we are
just beginning to understand just how complex the connections are
between us, our food, our pets, and the microscopic world in, on, and
around us. We are gradually decoding processes that we used to believe
were part of our inescapable destiny."
