Follow Your Gut

The Enormous Impact of Tiny Microbes

By: Rob Knight

Narrated by: Rob Knight

Allergies, asthma, obesity, acne: these are just a few of the conditions that may be caused—and someday cured—by the microscopic life inside us. The key is to understand how this groundbreaking science influences your health, mood, and more.

In just the last few years, scientists have shown how the microscopic life within our bodies— particularly within our intestines—has an astonishing impact on our lives. Your health, mood, sleep patterns, eating preferences—even your likelihood of getting bitten by mosquitoes—can be traced in part to the tiny creatures that live on and inside of us.

In Follow Your Gut, pioneering scientist Rob Knight pairs with award-winning science journalist Brendan Buhler to explain—with good humor and easy-to-grasp examples—why these new findings matter to everyone. They lead a detailed tour of the previously unseen world inside our bodies, calling out the diseases and conditions believed to be most directly impacted by them.

With a practical eye toward deeper knowledge and better decisions, they also explore the known effects of antibiotics, probiotics, diet choice and even birth method on our children’s lifelong health. Ultimately, this pioneering book explains how to learn about your own microbiome and take steps toward understanding and improving your health, using the latest research as a guide.

Excellent summary

If you would like an excellent summary of the current state of knowledge on microbes and their role in human health, I highly recommend. The science is advancing quickly, according to this author, so hopefully it will be regularly updated.

highly recommend

As a scientist researching the microbiome I would highly recommend this to anyone interested in the subject. Dr. Knight did a wonderful job on the book.

We are the Gardener and our microbiome is our garden

Excellent book on human microbiome, can't wait for the next one once we have gathered more data on how these single cell organisms effect us and our world.

Great cutting edge information

I thought the information in this book was fantastic. This is cutting-edge information that could change healthcare dramatically. I wish the information was already all known and I wish it was available for public consumption now.

Brilliantly laid out!

I admit I harbor disgruntled feeling about the medical community not paying more attention to the research in the field Rob Knight discusses in well written manuscript.

This knowledge is so helpful to know for those of us with depression and anxiety among other symptoms, like GERD, asthma, autism, food cravings, obesity, and general health concerns. The microbiota seem to be the canary in the coal mine, but not many medical providers even sound an alarm. Why not?!