Aug 24, 2021
Many of us were taught that microbes—and bacteria in
particular—were dangerous pathogens, and the safest thing human
beings could do was create a sterile, bacteria-free environment.
But in fact microbes are absolutely essential to human health, the
health of the soil, and to pretty much all life on earth.
Dr. Emeran Mayer is a gastroenterologist, executive
director of the G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress
and Resilience, and the director of the UCLA Microbiome Center. And
he’s author of the new book, The Gut-Immune Connection. We
talk about how the human microbiome functions, how it's stressed by
the standard American diet (SAD) and lifestyle—and the deep
interconnections between the human gut and the destruction of the
soil microbiome by intensive chemical agriculture. And yes, there
are good solutions—if we have the knowledge and will to make them
happen.