Chutkan Robynne - The Microbiome Solution: A Radical New Way to Heal Your Body from the Inside Out

M Y HUSBAND ISN T completely on board with my plan to sell our house in the city, move to a farm, raise animals, and grow our own food. But since much of whats available in the supermarket is full of chemicals and devoid of any real nutrients, taking control of what we eat and making sure it comes from nature, not a factory, strikes me as a good idea. Im fortunate to live in Washington, D.C., where farmers markets and community supported agriculture (CSA) shares are plentiful, so moving to an actual farm may seem a little extreme. My real motivation is that I want my daughter to grow up dirty, literallyas in easy on the soap and shampoo, heavy on the mucky animal chores. I shared her saga of antibiotic misadventure in my first book, Gutbliss. Since then, Ive seen hundreds of patients with stories similar to hers, and Ive become even more convinced that damage to the microbiomethe trillions of organisms that call our digestive tract homeis at the root of many of our current health problems. Figuring out how to undo that damage and rewild ourselves has become a focus of my medical practice and a personal journey in our household. Living a little dirtier and eating a little cleaner is definitely part of the fix.

Unwilding Ourselves

Our ancestors had a symbiotic relationship with their microbes that evolved over millions of years and served them well. They were benevolent hosts to a dense jungle of microscopic creatures, including worms and other parasites that actually contributed to their health. Large predators and the absence of food were their main threats, not the hundreds of diseases that afflict us today. The irony is that as weve unwilded our bodies and our environment in an effort to become healthier, weve actually become a lot sicker in some important ways.

Urbanization and modern medicine have undoubtedly improved our lives, but theyve also introduced practicesoveruse of antibiotics, chlorination of the water supply, processed foods full of chemicals and hormones, microbe-depleting pesticides, increasing rates of Cesarean sectionsthat have ravaged our microbiome, diminishing the total number of organisms as well as the diversity of species. The result is an increase in a wide range of modern plagues, including asthma, allergies, autoimmune diseases, diabetes, obesity, cancer, irritable bowel syndrome, anxiety, and heart disease. The rise of these diseases is inextricably intertwined with the full-on assault on our microbiome resulting from our super-sanitized lifestyle.

A decade ago, who knew that every antibiotic dispensed during cold and flu season was potentially bringing us one step closer to a diagnosis of Crohns disease, or making us fatter? None of us doing the prescribing realized that we might be paving the way to real illness in our well-meaning attempts to cure the sniffles. The prevailing wisdom wasand to some extent still isthat germs are bad and we should get rid of them, and antibiotics are good and we should use them. And use them we have: the average American child will receive more than a dozen courses of antibiotics before reaching college, primarily for minor illnesses that require no treatment at all. Despite the tremendous amount of research in the last few years connecting the dots, many physicians and their patients remain in the dark, blaming each manifestation of microbial discord on bad luck or bad genes, never questioning or understanding the root cause.

Less Is Often More

My own understanding came only after my daughter was treated with antibiotics at birth and throughout infancy, setting off a series of events that, a decade later, continue to affect her health. I had been trained at world-class institutions and practiced gastroenterology at a leading teaching hospital, but, like most physicians, I had no idea that the antibiotics I thought were so helpful were actually creating illness by decimating her microbiome at a time when it was most vulnerable, making her more susceptible to infection and inflammation. I wish I had known then what I know now and what I continue to learn every day: that illness is often the result of a decreased, not increased, bacterial load, and that less is sometimes more when it comes to medical intervention.