Feeding the Gut Microbiome

The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge once described a metaphysical revelation as the discovery of “hidden worlds within worlds,” an analogy that could be applied to modern-day investigations into the human gut microbiome. Within the trillions of microorganisms that populate our gastrointestinal tract, more than 1,000 species of bacteria reside, along with millions of genes. Yet every person’s microbiome is unique, a fact that heightens the mystery surrounding the nature of the miniature ecosystem in…