A healthy microbiome equals healthy aging by Tereza Hubkova, MD

More than a hundred years ago, Russian microbiologist and immunologist Ilya Ilich Metchnikoff attributed the longevity of Bulgarian peasants to their consumption of kefir. Kefir, as he noted, contained Lactobacillus bulgaricus, a bacterium-producing lactic acid lending the beverage its sour taste. How much of Metchnikoff's observation of the anti-aging effects of friendly microbes--or probiotics--is true? And, does illness and death truly begin in the colon? The human body can be described as a "meta-organism"--a hybrid of some 30 trillion human cells with another estimated 100 trillion bacteria, fungi, protozoa, archaea and viruses. In other words, for each native cell in the human body, we play host to three-or-more symbiotic microbial cells. Who do you think runs the show?