Interviewer: What's the deal with gut bacteria and why is it so important?
Dr. Stern: There are more bacteria in our intestinal tract than cells in our body. I mean, gut bacteria - trillions. So, anything that there's trillions of probably has an importance.
So, here's the thing. Everybody has good and bad bacteria. Anyone who says “I have no bad bacteria or no yeast in my body”, they don't know what they're talking about. Everyone has some levels of yeast or some bacteria at any time. It's just human nature. Just our body physiology.
However, usually the good bacteria need to be in a much more dominant level than the bad bacteria so we function at a healthy state. The reason why is because our good bacteria that live in our intestinal tract are critical for nutrient absorption, for making nutrients, for helping make anti-bodies, they help make serotonin, which is our "feel good" neurotransmitter, and 90 percent of our serotonin in our body comes from our intestinal tract.
So, bacteria has such an amazing importance on our body, and so with our immune system, our digestive tract, our ability to absorb nutrients, how we function as a whole, and how we think and feel, especially with neurotransmitters are effected if our gut bacteria are not at the optimal level they should be.