Biome Books

There are some really cool, thought provoking microbiome books out there so I thought I'd take the opportunity to share some that I've enjoyed and some that are on my bucket list! Two books on the microbiome that I have loved are 10% Human by Alanna Collen and The Microbiome Solution by Dr Robyanne Chutkan.

What's it about?

10% Human by Alanna Collen is a stimulating journey though health and disease from a biologists perspective. Alanna contracted Lymes disease while in the rain-forest; this started her journey of exploration into the microbiome and the impact of microbes on our health.

Best bits

My favourite part of the book is when Alanna talks about how rabies changes the behaviour/nature/personality of a dog for it's own survival and questioning whether other infections could have the same or similar powers over their host? (mind blown!!)

What is it about?

The Microbiome Solution is my favourite microbiome book so far! Dr Chuktan believes that every serious disease or chronic ailment starts in the gut. In the book Chuktan explains how the Western diet and our sanitised lifestyle are starving our gut microbes, depleting the good bacteria that keep us healthy and encouraging an overgrowth of many of the wrong types of bacteria, which make us sick.

Best bits

The 'live dirty, eat clean' philosophy engaged me and I loved the approach taken to health as a medical physician; she was seeing patient after patient who she could not diagnose but all had similar symptoms. Her journey started from there and she is now a real specialist in this field.

These are the next biome books on my list:

Missing Microbes, Dr Martin J. Blaser
I contain Multitudes, Ed Yong
The Microbiome Diet, Raphael Kellman
The Diet Myth, Tim Spector

I have heard a lot about Tim Spector author of The Diet Myth, who conducted the well publicised 10 Day McDonald's test on his son Tom (who only ate MaccyD's for 10 days).

On the diet, Tom lost half of his bifidobacteria (healthy bacteria designed to suppress inflammation in the digestive tract) and his firmicutes, the job of which is to extract energy from food, were also replaced with obesity-linked bacteroidetes. He also lost nearly 40 percent of his total bacteria variety IN ONLY 10 DAYS!