Gut Bacteria - Fortune Teller

So why do different people attract different bacteria as they grow up? Here comes the second surprise.

Scientists assumed it must be cultural. Babies born in northern Alaska presumably drink milk from moms who eat fish, who live in cold, snowy places, have dogs as pets and attract one mix of bacteria.

Indian babies, on the other hand, have mothers who eat rice, potatoes, spices, have different pets, birds maybe, and create a different mix of bacteria. Different worlds produce different environments. That makes sense, no?

But — along come Peer Bork, Manimozhiyan Arumugam and Jeroen Raes from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany. They took a look at stool samples (aren't you glad you didn't become a biologist?) from a small group of Europeans and read similar studies from Japan and America and, startlingly, found that gut bacteria in humans don't reflect local cultures.

And weirder still, food, diet, culture don't seem to matter. Nor do age, gender or nationality. So if we look at a bunch of Alaskans and a bunch of Indians, it now seems their gut bacteria will not look that different. What's more, all three "gut types" will show up in both groups. As blogger Ed Yong puts it, "In gut bacteria, we are united."

The mystery deepens: Why only three types? Nobody knows yet. Gut bacteria may turn out to be like blood types. We know there are A people and O people and B people. Now there may be Gut Type A, B and C people.

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