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The Human Superorganism: How the Microbiome Is Revolutionizing the Pursuit of a Healthy Life
"Eyeopening... Fascinating... may presage a paradigm shift in medicine.”
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Teeming with information and big ideas... Outstanding.”
— Booklist (starred review)
The origin of asthma, autism, Alzheimer's, allergies, cancer, heart disease, obesity, and even some kinds of depression is now clear. Award-winning researcher on the microbiome, professor Rodney Dietert presents a new paradigm in human biology that has emerged in the midst of the ongoing global epidemic of noncommunicable diseases.
The Human Superorganism makes a sweeping, paradigm-shifting argument. It demolishes two fundamental beliefs that have blinkered all medical thinking until very 1) Humans are better off as pure organisms free of foreign microbes; and 2) the human genome is the key to future medical advances. The microorganisms that we have sought to eliminate have been there for centuries supporting our ancestors. They comprise as much as 90 percent of the cells in and on our bodies—a staggering percentage! More than a thousand species of them live inside us, on our skin, and on our very eyelashes. Yet we have now significantly reduced their power and in doing so have sparked an epidemic of noncommunicable diseases—which now account for 63 percent of all human deaths.
Ultimately, this book is not just about microbes; it is about a different way to view humans. The story that Dietert tells of where the new biology comes from, how it works, and the ways in which it affects your life is fascinating, authoritative, and revolutionary. Dietert identifies foods that best serve you, the superorganism; not new fad foods but ancient foods that have made sense for millennia. He explains protective measures against unsafe chemicals and drugs. He offers an empowering self-care guide and the blueprint for a revolution in public health. We are not what we have been taught. Each of us is a superorganism. The best path to a healthy life is through recognizing that profound truth.
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Teeming with information and big ideas... Outstanding.”
— Booklist (starred review)
The origin of asthma, autism, Alzheimer's, allergies, cancer, heart disease, obesity, and even some kinds of depression is now clear. Award-winning researcher on the microbiome, professor Rodney Dietert presents a new paradigm in human biology that has emerged in the midst of the ongoing global epidemic of noncommunicable diseases.
The Human Superorganism makes a sweeping, paradigm-shifting argument. It demolishes two fundamental beliefs that have blinkered all medical thinking until very 1) Humans are better off as pure organisms free of foreign microbes; and 2) the human genome is the key to future medical advances. The microorganisms that we have sought to eliminate have been there for centuries supporting our ancestors. They comprise as much as 90 percent of the cells in and on our bodies—a staggering percentage! More than a thousand species of them live inside us, on our skin, and on our very eyelashes. Yet we have now significantly reduced their power and in doing so have sparked an epidemic of noncommunicable diseases—which now account for 63 percent of all human deaths.
Ultimately, this book is not just about microbes; it is about a different way to view humans. The story that Dietert tells of where the new biology comes from, how it works, and the ways in which it affects your life is fascinating, authoritative, and revolutionary. Dietert identifies foods that best serve you, the superorganism; not new fad foods but ancient foods that have made sense for millennia. He explains protective measures against unsafe chemicals and drugs. He offers an empowering self-care guide and the blueprint for a revolution in public health. We are not what we have been taught. Each of us is a superorganism. The best path to a healthy life is through recognizing that profound truth.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2016
126 people are currently reading
2070 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 93 reviews
December 10, 2016
We’re labeled as mammals, a single specie « homo sapiens » according to the old taxonomy, but that’s wrong, instead we each are a super organisme made up of thousands of species, biologically diverse! BE PROUD.
This was a very insightful educating book. i already knew most of the informations in this book since i'm Geneticist and i took Microbiology and Molecular microbiology (i hate this one so frigging much) classes, i remember i had a project about the molecular basis of evolution of NHR plasmid in new unfavorable hosts And i started searching for it but when i couldn't find anything i went on a YouTube spiral that started with Ted talks about religion by Daniel Dennett and ended much later with me watching keeping up with the kardashians, after closing youtube i decided to look for something meaningful and educating. that's how i found this book and i'm glad i did. the only thing that really bugged me and made my feminist side furious is when he talked about the discovery of the structure of DNA and gave all the credit to Watson and crick, i was like DAFQU? Without Rosalind frankling's notes these two would have never made it, i'm surprised that people still give these scientists credit for something they had very little to do with. ANYWAY, Great simple book, even those who are not in the microbiology/biology field could understand it. my professor always says that "if you can simplify a complex ideas and mechanisms that means you understood it"
This was a very insightful educating book. i already knew most of the informations in this book since i'm Geneticist and i took Microbiology and Molecular microbiology (i hate this one so frigging much) classes, i remember i had a project about the molecular basis of evolution of NHR plasmid in new unfavorable hosts And i started searching for it but when i couldn't find anything i went on a YouTube spiral that started with Ted talks about religion by Daniel Dennett and ended much later with me watching keeping up with the kardashians, after closing youtube i decided to look for something meaningful and educating. that's how i found this book and i'm glad i did. the only thing that really bugged me and made my feminist side furious is when he talked about the discovery of the structure of DNA and gave all the credit to Watson and crick, i was like DAFQU? Without Rosalind frankling's notes these two would have never made it, i'm surprised that people still give these scientists credit for something they had very little to do with. ANYWAY, Great simple book, even those who are not in the microbiology/biology field could understand it. my professor always says that "if you can simplify a complex ideas and mechanisms that means you understood it"
February 9, 2017
I'm extremely impressed with this book.
It's very well documented, including both primary research and building on four decades of game-changing discoveries. Far from being dry, it happens to be both amazingly exciting and potentially a life saver for us all.
What the hell? Am I blowing the lid off of this non-fiction book?
Possibly yes, possibly no. The fact is, nothing in here is wholly unique. The emphasis and the well-reasoned possibility and direction of future research is.
So what is this about? Put simply, or even extremely simply, is that we are made up of two sets of genomes. The mammalian genome topping out at about 22k base pairs making up about 10% of our body's biology, and the other 90% of the genomes which work in concert with all of our mammalian parts to convert energy and regulate EVERYTHING else. They the true puppeteers of our lives and it has been that way since the very beginning, and just as true for every other living creature on the planet. We are each Biomes of huge complexity, and what was more interesting, at least to me, is learning that our guts are only a small part of the picture. Every part of our body is made up of particular regulatory patches of bacteria working in concert. If they fall out of balance or if a particularly clever subset fills a vacuum caused by a particular die-off, then we get sick, increase our chances for huge numbers of non-communicable diseases.
Antibiotics cause obesity.
Get it? The proper flora dies with the disease and then weakens us to further complications. That's pretty standard stuff to learn these days and we get it. The problem is, the normal biological model is slow to catch up and treat the whole SYSTEM, including research into methods of increasing not just classes of bacterial strains, but even long, long lists of specific ones, including Akkermansia Munciniphilia, which has been shown to specifically reduce abdominal fat, and I'm just mentioning only this one.
The rest of the short list in this book targets a lot more than just obesity. It turns out that the widest range of non-communicable diseases are covered here as well: from depression, obesity, cancer, heart disease, autism, Alzheimer's disease, to a much longer possible list.
You've heard that processed and pasteurized foods are directly contributing to a loss of our personal Biotas, right? That once we stopped fermenting our foods and stopped eating raw, then completely different sets of not particularly helpful bacteria sets up camp in our guts and skin and every other part of our bodies, right?
Hell, I'll attest to the viability of everything here. I changed my diet to 50% raw greens and suddently discovered that I was no longer depressed, lost the gastrointestinal maladies, lost weight, had a brighter outlook on life, got better sleep, and generally became a new man. WHO KNEW? lol This was years ago for me, and the changes remained because I encouraged a new biota in my gut.
This book takes it further, with TONS of reference material taking up 1/4 of the book, calling out for a change in our biological outlook, ending in a change in paradigm.
So it turns out that if we treat our symbiotic partners as PARTNERS, they can heal us directly. Huh. Who'd have thunk? The fact that our healthy and natural bodies are only *slightly* mammalian, that the fully mapped Human Genome Project surprised the living hell out of us with the realization that (*we* as in our Human DNA) is only about a 1% of a person's complete biota, and that in treating only it, we're basically spitting in the wind.
The trick is to recolonize our biota, to have a very specific game plan for each individual, since while there's over 10,000 bacterial species that work closely with mankind, any one of us might have somewhere around a 1000 of them in current residence, and it's pretty plain that mothers pass along anywhere between 42% to 78% of their "additional" biota to their babies at birth, so similarities ARE genetically passed on, but only a small portion of those genetic similarities are human. It it worth noting that the range I just mentioned represents C-Section babies or those that actually travel through the vagina. C-Section babies, unbenownst to most of modern medicine, leaves our babies, (including myself and my daughter) with incomplete biota, leaving us a LOT more susceptible to autism and all the other non-communicable diseases I mentioned.
Autism used to be rare, but now it hits 1/68 children. That's a 500% increase in 40 years and it's only getting worse. This isn't even a selection bias.
Fortunately, the term Rebiosis is a bit of a hopeful term, because it means bringing us back into a healthy biota at any age. It's MOST important for newborns, but of course we could all use a break from peanut and wheat allergies, asthma, irritable bowel syndrome, even anxiety and depression by JUST GETTING THE BALANCE RIGHT. Huh. Cool.
Modern medicine has a lot of research it still has to do, but we as a people really need to be aware that this isn't some fad. We are a lot more than a single set of genes and we've known this for a very long time. It's time to treat the whole system and stop trying to just treat the Mammal.
I know I'm not doing the book great justice with just this little blurb. It deserves to read and digested for yourself. Pun not intentional.
(Or maybe it was, a little.)
Thanks goes to Netgalley for this wonderful book!
It's very well documented, including both primary research and building on four decades of game-changing discoveries. Far from being dry, it happens to be both amazingly exciting and potentially a life saver for us all.
What the hell? Am I blowing the lid off of this non-fiction book?
Possibly yes, possibly no. The fact is, nothing in here is wholly unique. The emphasis and the well-reasoned possibility and direction of future research is.
So what is this about? Put simply, or even extremely simply, is that we are made up of two sets of genomes. The mammalian genome topping out at about 22k base pairs making up about 10% of our body's biology, and the other 90% of the genomes which work in concert with all of our mammalian parts to convert energy and regulate EVERYTHING else. They the true puppeteers of our lives and it has been that way since the very beginning, and just as true for every other living creature on the planet. We are each Biomes of huge complexity, and what was more interesting, at least to me, is learning that our guts are only a small part of the picture. Every part of our body is made up of particular regulatory patches of bacteria working in concert. If they fall out of balance or if a particularly clever subset fills a vacuum caused by a particular die-off, then we get sick, increase our chances for huge numbers of non-communicable diseases.
Antibiotics cause obesity.
Get it? The proper flora dies with the disease and then weakens us to further complications. That's pretty standard stuff to learn these days and we get it. The problem is, the normal biological model is slow to catch up and treat the whole SYSTEM, including research into methods of increasing not just classes of bacterial strains, but even long, long lists of specific ones, including Akkermansia Munciniphilia, which has been shown to specifically reduce abdominal fat, and I'm just mentioning only this one.
The rest of the short list in this book targets a lot more than just obesity. It turns out that the widest range of non-communicable diseases are covered here as well: from depression, obesity, cancer, heart disease, autism, Alzheimer's disease, to a much longer possible list.
You've heard that processed and pasteurized foods are directly contributing to a loss of our personal Biotas, right? That once we stopped fermenting our foods and stopped eating raw, then completely different sets of not particularly helpful bacteria sets up camp in our guts and skin and every other part of our bodies, right?
Hell, I'll attest to the viability of everything here. I changed my diet to 50% raw greens and suddently discovered that I was no longer depressed, lost the gastrointestinal maladies, lost weight, had a brighter outlook on life, got better sleep, and generally became a new man. WHO KNEW? lol This was years ago for me, and the changes remained because I encouraged a new biota in my gut.
This book takes it further, with TONS of reference material taking up 1/4 of the book, calling out for a change in our biological outlook, ending in a change in paradigm.
So it turns out that if we treat our symbiotic partners as PARTNERS, they can heal us directly. Huh. Who'd have thunk? The fact that our healthy and natural bodies are only *slightly* mammalian, that the fully mapped Human Genome Project surprised the living hell out of us with the realization that (*we* as in our Human DNA) is only about a 1% of a person's complete biota, and that in treating only it, we're basically spitting in the wind.
The trick is to recolonize our biota, to have a very specific game plan for each individual, since while there's over 10,000 bacterial species that work closely with mankind, any one of us might have somewhere around a 1000 of them in current residence, and it's pretty plain that mothers pass along anywhere between 42% to 78% of their "additional" biota to their babies at birth, so similarities ARE genetically passed on, but only a small portion of those genetic similarities are human. It it worth noting that the range I just mentioned represents C-Section babies or those that actually travel through the vagina. C-Section babies, unbenownst to most of modern medicine, leaves our babies, (including myself and my daughter) with incomplete biota, leaving us a LOT more susceptible to autism and all the other non-communicable diseases I mentioned.
Autism used to be rare, but now it hits 1/68 children. That's a 500% increase in 40 years and it's only getting worse. This isn't even a selection bias.
Fortunately, the term Rebiosis is a bit of a hopeful term, because it means bringing us back into a healthy biota at any age. It's MOST important for newborns, but of course we could all use a break from peanut and wheat allergies, asthma, irritable bowel syndrome, even anxiety and depression by JUST GETTING THE BALANCE RIGHT. Huh. Cool.
Modern medicine has a lot of research it still has to do, but we as a people really need to be aware that this isn't some fad. We are a lot more than a single set of genes and we've known this for a very long time. It's time to treat the whole system and stop trying to just treat the Mammal.
I know I'm not doing the book great justice with just this little blurb. It deserves to read and digested for yourself. Pun not intentional.
(Or maybe it was, a little.)
Thanks goes to Netgalley for this wonderful book!
March 4, 2021
I do research in this field. This book is a decent review of gut microbiome science, but the author vastly overstates much of the research in the area. Read for an overview of an important and fascinating area of research, but keep in mind that the actual health claims being made by the author are supported by very little evidence. Time will tell whether his recommendations bear out, or are lost as statistical noise. I would recommend Blaser's 'Missing Microbes' or Yong's 'I Contain Multitudes' for more measured and accurate representations of what is known about the gut microbiota.
July 19, 2021
I feel like at this point most people with at least a passing interest in human biology, wellbeing or medicine have realised the importance of our microbiota, but Dietert writes as if he was sharing this fresh new discovery almost no one has heard of. I don’t know about you, but I don’t remember being prescribed antibiotics in the last 20 years without also being recommended and given probiotics at the same time.
So, on one hand the author explains the basic concept as if it’s some esoteric knowledge the general population is not privy to, but on the other he also jumps way ahead from one conjecture to another and ends up with some seriously far-fetched conclusions. The science is just not there yet, but it doesn’t stop Dietert from confusing correlation with causation as if he were a five-year-old.
He doesn’t explain properly how the various non-communicable diseases are supposedly caused by the problems with the microbiota, even though there would definitely be enough space in his book to do so, if he just cut some of the endless repetitions and juvenile metaphors.
He offers some personal anecdotes of how probiotics saved his life. That was after his admission of having had over a hundred courses of antibiotics and a crappy diet. He then went to Germany for a few days, had some sauerkraut and felt much better. To which I can only say: duh. But it’s not going to be such a game changer for someone like me who grew up in Eastern Europe and is used to consuming fermented and pickled everything on a daily basis and generally had a healthy diet without processed food (since it was not readily available as it is now). Even our school dinners were cooked from scratch on site. I still had all the symptoms of ADHD as a child.
I am absolutely not denying the importance of taking care of your microbiome, but Dietert is definitely the kind of scientist who believes his life work will cause the ultimate paradigm shift, rather than offer another piece of the puzzle of our understanding of human biology.
I should probably research authors a little before purchasing their books, because reading this I kept asking myself ‘who is this nutjob’. I decided to google him, found his twitter and consequently learnt he is a hardcore Trumper who says things like “liberal tears float our boats”. Also, I’m sure I saw a tweet when he was accusing Hilary Clinton of killing our microbiome, but I can’t find it now so maybe I did dream it after all. And you really don’t want to see his tweets about Covid.
There is an interesting paradox about our Deitert. He advocates the holistic approach towards treating various conditions (which I wholeheartedly agree with) but he himself is possessed with this monomania that stopped him from getting up to date on breakthroughs in other branches of science like the science of nutrition. (He chats some utter nonsense about fats).
Finally, he also talks about how the church and religion informed his views on science and when he talks about the discovery of DNA he only mentions Watson and Crick, and not a word about Rosalind Franklin, which is all pretty on brand for a guy like him.
Still, I’m giving it two stars, because I did learn a thing or two, and overall it is an interesting and important subject. And it did motivate me to crank up my pre- and probiotic consumption which does seem to help managing a chronic condition I have.
So, on one hand the author explains the basic concept as if it’s some esoteric knowledge the general population is not privy to, but on the other he also jumps way ahead from one conjecture to another and ends up with some seriously far-fetched conclusions. The science is just not there yet, but it doesn’t stop Dietert from confusing correlation with causation as if he were a five-year-old.
He doesn’t explain properly how the various non-communicable diseases are supposedly caused by the problems with the microbiota, even though there would definitely be enough space in his book to do so, if he just cut some of the endless repetitions and juvenile metaphors.
He offers some personal anecdotes of how probiotics saved his life. That was after his admission of having had over a hundred courses of antibiotics and a crappy diet. He then went to Germany for a few days, had some sauerkraut and felt much better. To which I can only say: duh. But it’s not going to be such a game changer for someone like me who grew up in Eastern Europe and is used to consuming fermented and pickled everything on a daily basis and generally had a healthy diet without processed food (since it was not readily available as it is now). Even our school dinners were cooked from scratch on site. I still had all the symptoms of ADHD as a child.
I am absolutely not denying the importance of taking care of your microbiome, but Dietert is definitely the kind of scientist who believes his life work will cause the ultimate paradigm shift, rather than offer another piece of the puzzle of our understanding of human biology.
I should probably research authors a little before purchasing their books, because reading this I kept asking myself ‘who is this nutjob’. I decided to google him, found his twitter and consequently learnt he is a hardcore Trumper who says things like “liberal tears float our boats”. Also, I’m sure I saw a tweet when he was accusing Hilary Clinton of killing our microbiome, but I can’t find it now so maybe I did dream it after all. And you really don’t want to see his tweets about Covid.
There is an interesting paradox about our Deitert. He advocates the holistic approach towards treating various conditions (which I wholeheartedly agree with) but he himself is possessed with this monomania that stopped him from getting up to date on breakthroughs in other branches of science like the science of nutrition. (He chats some utter nonsense about fats).
Finally, he also talks about how the church and religion informed his views on science and when he talks about the discovery of DNA he only mentions Watson and Crick, and not a word about Rosalind Franklin, which is all pretty on brand for a guy like him.
Still, I’m giving it two stars, because I did learn a thing or two, and overall it is an interesting and important subject. And it did motivate me to crank up my pre- and probiotic consumption which does seem to help managing a chronic condition I have.
May 29, 2021
Highlights:
--I like to have an ongoing, accessible science book (usually public health or environment); this was a delightful (especially its diversity) follow-up to Missing Microbes: How the Overuse of Antibiotics Is Fueling Our Modern Plagues.
--The paradigm shift is to challenge the dominant medical paradigm focusing on a purely-human genome (thus omitting microbes):
1) “Species”: ideas reducing humans to pure species omit the vast number of bacterial cells we house and rely on. This also has some interesting implications regarding theories of evolution (Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, Charles Darwin, Theodosius Dobzhansky, Richard Dawkins...), ecology, etc.
2) 20th century innovations in antibiotics have revolutionized medical practice against infectious diseases. However, our ecosystem of microbes (human microbiome) provide many essential functions via mutualism with useful microbes. Besides the overuse of antibiotics in medicine, its use in the nightmarish capitalist meat production (i.e. factory farming, to produce larger, thus more profitable, animals) requires separate books:
-Big Chicken: The Incredible Story of How Antibiotics Created Modern Agriculture and Changed the Way the World Eats
-Big Farms Make Big Flu: Dispatches on Influenza, Agribusiness, and the Nature of Science
...other disruptions of our human microbiome include diet (food sterilization, less fermentation due to refrigeration), urban pollution (microbiome filters environmental exposures), birth techniques (c-section, formula milk), etc.
3) The decline of infectious diseases coincided with the rise of noncommunicable diseases (“chronic”). The book discusses links between this and disrupted microbiomes. The immune system is particularly fascinating.
…Note: the “Your Brain on Microbes” probably gets hyped too, but I’m much more skeptical over this messy area because:
a) My favorite researchers find the area compromised:
-Ben Goldacre: https://www.badscience.net/2011/10/wh...
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2...
-John Ioannidis: https://www.madinamerica.com/2016/09/...
b) If we move beyond statistics/scientific methodologies and consider ideology, it’s curious how many popular names involving mind/behavior have such trash views on society: Steven Pinker, Jordan B. Peterson, Sam Harris, etc. And pop psychology (ex. Malcolm Gladwell) is just silly.
The Missing:
--The direction towards “personalized”/“precision” medicine is still focused on the human genome and neglects the microbiome. I need to look into how the evidence-based medicine paradigm (ex. Cochrane reviews, Goldacre) deals with personalized medicine in general and the current state of research on the human microbiome…
…This also relates to the final section on “self-care”. Many of the aforementioned issues require societal change; public knowledge and thus protest makes more sense than individualist consumer choice.
--I like to have an ongoing, accessible science book (usually public health or environment); this was a delightful (especially its diversity) follow-up to Missing Microbes: How the Overuse of Antibiotics Is Fueling Our Modern Plagues.
--The paradigm shift is to challenge the dominant medical paradigm focusing on a purely-human genome (thus omitting microbes):
1) “Species”: ideas reducing humans to pure species omit the vast number of bacterial cells we house and rely on. This also has some interesting implications regarding theories of evolution (Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, Charles Darwin, Theodosius Dobzhansky, Richard Dawkins...), ecology, etc.
2) 20th century innovations in antibiotics have revolutionized medical practice against infectious diseases. However, our ecosystem of microbes (human microbiome) provide many essential functions via mutualism with useful microbes. Besides the overuse of antibiotics in medicine, its use in the nightmarish capitalist meat production (i.e. factory farming, to produce larger, thus more profitable, animals) requires separate books:
-Big Chicken: The Incredible Story of How Antibiotics Created Modern Agriculture and Changed the Way the World Eats
-Big Farms Make Big Flu: Dispatches on Influenza, Agribusiness, and the Nature of Science
...other disruptions of our human microbiome include diet (food sterilization, less fermentation due to refrigeration), urban pollution (microbiome filters environmental exposures), birth techniques (c-section, formula milk), etc.
3) The decline of infectious diseases coincided with the rise of noncommunicable diseases (“chronic”). The book discusses links between this and disrupted microbiomes. The immune system is particularly fascinating.
…Note: the “Your Brain on Microbes” probably gets hyped too, but I’m much more skeptical over this messy area because:
a) My favorite researchers find the area compromised:
-Ben Goldacre: https://www.badscience.net/2011/10/wh...
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2...
-John Ioannidis: https://www.madinamerica.com/2016/09/...
b) If we move beyond statistics/scientific methodologies and consider ideology, it’s curious how many popular names involving mind/behavior have such trash views on society: Steven Pinker, Jordan B. Peterson, Sam Harris, etc. And pop psychology (ex. Malcolm Gladwell) is just silly.
The Missing:
--The direction towards “personalized”/“precision” medicine is still focused on the human genome and neglects the microbiome. I need to look into how the evidence-based medicine paradigm (ex. Cochrane reviews, Goldacre) deals with personalized medicine in general and the current state of research on the human microbiome…
…This also relates to the final section on “self-care”. Many of the aforementioned issues require societal change; public knowledge and thus protest makes more sense than individualist consumer choice.
November 24, 2016
Be wary of a person who found a hammer. Book doesn't explain any details. Makes lots of observations of correlations and implies far reaching and unsupported claims like links of autism and microbial biomes. The final chapters claim to offer advice but have zero actionable information but that's a good thing since this science is less proven than the author would have you think which should be apparent from the lack of any explanation of how the processes work to create the effects they are correlated with. Incredibly repetitive with the same central claim stated over and over trying to convince by repetition rather than argument.
October 23, 2018
While the topic is interesting and there were some good points to take in, overall this book was disappointing. As a scientist, I was hoping to hear about up-to-date science into the human superorganism, the microbiome, metagenomics, and understand better where this field is and where it is going. I did not get that with this book. The main points were never clear, many topics were reiterated, and diatribes offered little to nothing about the underlying theme, for which there wasn't one. Plus, most of the points approached in the book were not backed by scientific evidence and were just arguments for in the far-off future where this field could go. This last point was the most disappointing, because it shows how far off this field is, if there are no clear links of microbiome-related causes to disease, then there is still a massive amount of work to do to tease these things apart. What I was hoping for in this last point would be a path or direction to get to an understanding of non-communicable disease and the relationship with the microbiome, but as of this book being written, there is only large-scale correlative evidence.
July 31, 2019
I first read about gut bacteria more than a decade (maybe two) ago, and was immediately intrigued by the implications. And as I continue to read on the topic, my interest only intensifies.
I think Dietert's term superorganism along with his comparison between a body and its microbes to a rain forest provide a wonderful analogy. While we generally think of bacteria as something bad that makes us sick, the truth is we are home to millions of microbes. And these bugs are more than just passengers or tenants. They are part of us. They digest things we can't, provide vitamins we need, influence our immune system, and produce chemicals that communicate with our brain. In fact, it is believed that the mitochrondria in our cells (our cellular powerhouses where energy is produced) were actually bacteria at one point that were engulfed by another more primitive cell.
In fact, we now know that bacteria can turn on portions of our DNA (epigenetics), effecting gene expression. It is also believed that once turned on, this change can be transferred to future generations. Furthermore, there is even mounting evidence that under certain circumstances bacteria can transfer their DNA into human cells.
Bottom line: we really are a superorganism whose health is dependent not only on our human cells but also on the health and type of our microbial cells.
Dietert blames many of the non-communicable diseases like heart disease, auto-immune disorders, diabetes, metabolic syndrome and even cancer on changes to our microbiome. Over-prescription of antibiotics that not only kill harmful bacteria but also harm the beneficial bacteria, cesarean births which deny babies critical exposure to their mother's vaginal bacteria and ultimately impact their microbiome and immune system, use of baby formula instead of breast milk which actually contains sugars that can only be digested by bacteria cells, and a modern western lifestyle which does not nurture a healthy mix of microbes have left us either with an incomplete biome or an unhealthy one.
Unfortunately, I think he overstates what we know about the role of microbes as well as the future implications.
He also never quite describes exactly what constitutes a healthy microbiome, probably because we still don't know for sure.
From other sources I've read, the consensus seems to be that behaviors that support general health like eating a diet with lots of fruits and veggies along with daily exercise also support a beneficial and healthy microbiome, while eating a high-fat, high-calorie, nutrient-deficient diet doesn't. Beyond that, I'm not sure.
Interestingly, according to Dietrert we know that obesity is associated with a different microbiome. The question remains, why? Do the bugs cause the obesity or do the behaviors that cause obesity also cause certain bugs to flourish, or does the obesity itself account for the differences seen. Or maybe all the above, none of the above, or something in between. He cites how transplanting microbes from obese mice can actually lead to obesity in previously normal weight mice. This is fascinating, but I'm still not sure we know exactly what this means in the short or long term.
Dietrert also talks a lot about probiotics and prebiotics generally, but backs away from making any concrete recommendations probably because nobody really knows.
I tend to view probiotics like supplements. Most supplements are taken blindly, and we really have no way of knowing if they are helpful or hurtful over the long term. It seems more logical to focus on behaviors that we know are associated with better health as it is likely that they are also healthy for our microbes.
Definitely a fascinating topic that will continue to be explored and developed. Yet another piece to the puzzle that shows just how very complex our bodies and systems are and why you can't tweak one area without worrying about how it may be affecting the system as a whole. Being in medicine for many years, I've observed that many of our "cures" merely exchange one problem for another or treat symptoms as opposed to getting to the heart of the problem. I think our intimate relationship with microbes is another explanation for why. As our understanding of our microbiome increases, it may result in a more proactive and targeted approach to medicine. But for now, eat lots of fruits and veggies, whole foods, exercise daily, get adequate sleep, and manage your stress. Chances are these behaviors will also result in a healthier gut microbiome.
I think Dietert's term superorganism along with his comparison between a body and its microbes to a rain forest provide a wonderful analogy. While we generally think of bacteria as something bad that makes us sick, the truth is we are home to millions of microbes. And these bugs are more than just passengers or tenants. They are part of us. They digest things we can't, provide vitamins we need, influence our immune system, and produce chemicals that communicate with our brain. In fact, it is believed that the mitochrondria in our cells (our cellular powerhouses where energy is produced) were actually bacteria at one point that were engulfed by another more primitive cell.
In fact, we now know that bacteria can turn on portions of our DNA (epigenetics), effecting gene expression. It is also believed that once turned on, this change can be transferred to future generations. Furthermore, there is even mounting evidence that under certain circumstances bacteria can transfer their DNA into human cells.
Bottom line: we really are a superorganism whose health is dependent not only on our human cells but also on the health and type of our microbial cells.
Dietert blames many of the non-communicable diseases like heart disease, auto-immune disorders, diabetes, metabolic syndrome and even cancer on changes to our microbiome. Over-prescription of antibiotics that not only kill harmful bacteria but also harm the beneficial bacteria, cesarean births which deny babies critical exposure to their mother's vaginal bacteria and ultimately impact their microbiome and immune system, use of baby formula instead of breast milk which actually contains sugars that can only be digested by bacteria cells, and a modern western lifestyle which does not nurture a healthy mix of microbes have left us either with an incomplete biome or an unhealthy one.
Unfortunately, I think he overstates what we know about the role of microbes as well as the future implications.
He also never quite describes exactly what constitutes a healthy microbiome, probably because we still don't know for sure.
From other sources I've read, the consensus seems to be that behaviors that support general health like eating a diet with lots of fruits and veggies along with daily exercise also support a beneficial and healthy microbiome, while eating a high-fat, high-calorie, nutrient-deficient diet doesn't. Beyond that, I'm not sure.
Interestingly, according to Dietrert we know that obesity is associated with a different microbiome. The question remains, why? Do the bugs cause the obesity or do the behaviors that cause obesity also cause certain bugs to flourish, or does the obesity itself account for the differences seen. Or maybe all the above, none of the above, or something in between. He cites how transplanting microbes from obese mice can actually lead to obesity in previously normal weight mice. This is fascinating, but I'm still not sure we know exactly what this means in the short or long term.
Dietrert also talks a lot about probiotics and prebiotics generally, but backs away from making any concrete recommendations probably because nobody really knows.
I tend to view probiotics like supplements. Most supplements are taken blindly, and we really have no way of knowing if they are helpful or hurtful over the long term. It seems more logical to focus on behaviors that we know are associated with better health as it is likely that they are also healthy for our microbes.
Definitely a fascinating topic that will continue to be explored and developed. Yet another piece to the puzzle that shows just how very complex our bodies and systems are and why you can't tweak one area without worrying about how it may be affecting the system as a whole. Being in medicine for many years, I've observed that many of our "cures" merely exchange one problem for another or treat symptoms as opposed to getting to the heart of the problem. I think our intimate relationship with microbes is another explanation for why. As our understanding of our microbiome increases, it may result in a more proactive and targeted approach to medicine. But for now, eat lots of fruits and veggies, whole foods, exercise daily, get adequate sleep, and manage your stress. Chances are these behaviors will also result in a healthier gut microbiome.
June 10, 2022
"it's written by a guy with a phd in immunogenetics. of course it's badly written." ~ grace elizabeth ho
this book was kind of a struggle to get through insofar as the writing was never something you _wanted_ to read. in many parts the flow from section to section isn't really clear (could really have done with a more fastidious and intransigent editor, i figure), and strange metaphors abound. some misguided philosophy as well: author muses given that our microbiome affects our mind if it's "our mammalian self or our microbes" that really forms the self on a number of occasions... but that dichotomy seems to me to miss the point. IF our microbiome affects our mind (emotions, preferences, desires to some extent) then it's really not a question of either/or but of both, surely: our self is a product both of the mammalian brain and the microbial factors that interact with it... or something closer to that, anyway.
quibbles aside - the writer DOES advance a hypothesis that seems to me to be largely coreect: the idea that humans are naturally "superorganisms" formed from the interaction of our microbiome and what we conventionally consider to be us - the mammal. that's true in terms of how our microbiome is essential to our immune development, our neurology/psychology, and our interactions with the environment - and the interruption of our microbiome therefore precipitates a bunch of chronic diseases we don't really want to deal with.
that much is convincing, although i wish the author delved more into the science of it all and wasted less time with unnecessary analogies. still - it does seem from all this and other studies i've come across that the microbiome will become a major theme of biology, or at least the medical sciences, as evolution is now a major theme. (w/ a pinch of salt. this book is kinda polemic and self-helpy so there's definitely a degree of balance that is missed out at least in part. bleh)
2 stars for the writing, 4 stars for the science. rating splits the difference.
this book was kind of a struggle to get through insofar as the writing was never something you _wanted_ to read. in many parts the flow from section to section isn't really clear (could really have done with a more fastidious and intransigent editor, i figure), and strange metaphors abound. some misguided philosophy as well: author muses given that our microbiome affects our mind if it's "our mammalian self or our microbes" that really forms the self on a number of occasions... but that dichotomy seems to me to miss the point. IF our microbiome affects our mind (emotions, preferences, desires to some extent) then it's really not a question of either/or but of both, surely: our self is a product both of the mammalian brain and the microbial factors that interact with it... or something closer to that, anyway.
quibbles aside - the writer DOES advance a hypothesis that seems to me to be largely coreect: the idea that humans are naturally "superorganisms" formed from the interaction of our microbiome and what we conventionally consider to be us - the mammal. that's true in terms of how our microbiome is essential to our immune development, our neurology/psychology, and our interactions with the environment - and the interruption of our microbiome therefore precipitates a bunch of chronic diseases we don't really want to deal with.
that much is convincing, although i wish the author delved more into the science of it all and wasted less time with unnecessary analogies. still - it does seem from all this and other studies i've come across that the microbiome will become a major theme of biology, or at least the medical sciences, as evolution is now a major theme. (w/ a pinch of salt. this book is kinda polemic and self-helpy so there's definitely a degree of balance that is missed out at least in part. bleh)
2 stars for the writing, 4 stars for the science. rating splits the difference.
July 6, 2022
Interesting premise. Definitely matches my experience. Fermented and live foods just make you feel better. The book is a little wordy and repetitive, but worth the read.
January 6, 2018
Holy myopia Batman! Talk about getting the right answer by drawing the wrong conclusions.
An interesting enough book, but it isn't all that 'entertaining' or well written, and flicks from being grade school condescending one minute, then thinks you are a research chemist the next. While I agree with the basic premise of it, I think the author overlooks a big point, and by doing so shoots himself in the foot. Our biome is the key, I don't think this will in any doubt in the near future, but the biome can't trump a bigger player, and that is our diet.
The author is so focussed on our microbiome, he seems to have missed the current science regarding cholesterol and statins altogether, and despite him constantly saying that we need to treat the cause, not the symptom, he repeats over and over about treating the symptom, without questioning why this happened in the first place, in other words, the cause. He also is in the dark ages re fat, since he indicates several times that a high fat diet is something to avoid. Maybe he should read Gary Taubes or Nina Teicholz or Stephen Phinney and join us in the 21st century, instead of being stuck in the 20th.
He constantly talks about us being a superorganism, yet focusses on one facet of it, and while I am sure he is right in saying that our microbiome plays a much larger part in our health than is currently understood, he seems to do exactly what he accuses current science of, which is NOT looking at the bigger picture.
He also uses the book as a platform for his opinions, and I'd much rather that I got just the facts ma'm, and draw my own. Soapboxing in books I am not a fan of.
Worth reading I guess if you know nothing about the subject, but I think there are better books on it (Missing Microbes comes to mind).
An interesting enough book, but it isn't all that 'entertaining' or well written, and flicks from being grade school condescending one minute, then thinks you are a research chemist the next. While I agree with the basic premise of it, I think the author overlooks a big point, and by doing so shoots himself in the foot. Our biome is the key, I don't think this will in any doubt in the near future, but the biome can't trump a bigger player, and that is our diet.
The author is so focussed on our microbiome, he seems to have missed the current science regarding cholesterol and statins altogether, and despite him constantly saying that we need to treat the cause, not the symptom, he repeats over and over about treating the symptom, without questioning why this happened in the first place, in other words, the cause. He also is in the dark ages re fat, since he indicates several times that a high fat diet is something to avoid. Maybe he should read Gary Taubes or Nina Teicholz or Stephen Phinney and join us in the 21st century, instead of being stuck in the 20th.
He constantly talks about us being a superorganism, yet focusses on one facet of it, and while I am sure he is right in saying that our microbiome plays a much larger part in our health than is currently understood, he seems to do exactly what he accuses current science of, which is NOT looking at the bigger picture.
He also uses the book as a platform for his opinions, and I'd much rather that I got just the facts ma'm, and draw my own. Soapboxing in books I am not a fan of.
Worth reading I guess if you know nothing about the subject, but I think there are better books on it (Missing Microbes comes to mind).
June 16, 2019
One of the best books I’ve read regarding the microbiome and its effects on health. I have been on a reading binge lately on this topic and was discouraged with the majority of books as they didn’t really explain what is happening and how to take action. I truly enjoyed reading this book as it includes both in an easily understandable manner. Now if we could just see the medical field advance enough to use this new information.
July 19, 2016
Just when you think science is slowing down, it finds a bunch of more stuff to figure out. This book's findings, if hold true, will necessitate the rewriting of a lot of books. I'm already feeling impatient to read more on this topic.
November 16, 2016
Simply an eye-opening read on the importance of Microbiome for human body, health and medicine. I had quite a hard time following names of bacteria, archea species (but i guess i wont remember most of them).
March 28, 2024
This book was informative yet redundant and I kept waiting for the explanation on how to improve or recalibrate gut microbiome, I felt I just kept getting hit over the head with why I should…
Actionable items are vague. I got my copy from the library and two pages were dog-earred. Out of the entire book the previous reader had tabbed the only two pages where one might get a glimpse of how to start a rebiosis
Actionable items are vague. I got my copy from the library and two pages were dog-earred. Out of the entire book the previous reader had tabbed the only two pages where one might get a glimpse of how to start a rebiosis
May 30, 2021
Rrrrrr. This seemed like a lot of non-science.
January 16, 2025
I BEG you to read this book🦠‼️‼️
April 10, 2020
Some good points and good writing
Some balderdash!
Some balderdash!
July 13, 2016
THE HUMAN SUPERORGANISM conveys a new paradigm expressed in the book’s title: “We each are a superorganism made up of thousands of species, biologically diverse.” In contrast, the current paradigm only considers the human mammalian genome.
With or without our awareness, we are taking care of our organism in a more holistic way if we consume fermented foods as our ancestors did. However, knowledge of cause is powerful that’s why I enjoyed this book. Even though, because of the title, it could be perceived to address experts or students in topics as immunotoxicology as the author Rodney Dietert, PhD, but not really, the author stated his wife transformed his scientific language for readers with no expertise to understand.
CONTENT:
PART ONE: A SHIFT IN HOW WE THINK ABOUT BIOLOGY
PART TWO: A REVOLUTION IN MEDICINE
PART THREE: CARING FOR YOURSELF
THE HUMAN SUPEROGANISM will encourage you to know more about the microbial genome, from what it is, passing through non-communicative (NCDs) diseases epidemic as obesity, cancer, allergies, depression, among others, to why the same perfume smells differently on different people.
You won’t find much about parasitism in this book as its main focus is on mutualism and commensalism.
THE HUMAN SUPERORGANISM has a futuristic outcome for the main stream – how long would it take? – as long as it pervades to the public and influence governments’ policies, pharmaceutical, medical, and food industries to acknowledge this paradigm, and make required changes, meanwhile, for a minority this ‘futuristic’ approach has been here for a long time as doctors, food business owners and people of every walk of life, aware and concern with these chronic diseases, have taken charge of their health with a more holistic approach for decades.
Nowadays, this super-organism the author resembles to a tropical rain-forest or a coral reef ecosystem is endangered as disables for NCDs epidemic keep growing, until changes occurred where prevention of disease would be a priority instead of profit in expense of humanity well-being.
With or without our awareness, we are taking care of our organism in a more holistic way if we consume fermented foods as our ancestors did. However, knowledge of cause is powerful that’s why I enjoyed this book. Even though, because of the title, it could be perceived to address experts or students in topics as immunotoxicology as the author Rodney Dietert, PhD, but not really, the author stated his wife transformed his scientific language for readers with no expertise to understand.
CONTENT:
PART ONE: A SHIFT IN HOW WE THINK ABOUT BIOLOGY
PART TWO: A REVOLUTION IN MEDICINE
PART THREE: CARING FOR YOURSELF
THE HUMAN SUPEROGANISM will encourage you to know more about the microbial genome, from what it is, passing through non-communicative (NCDs) diseases epidemic as obesity, cancer, allergies, depression, among others, to why the same perfume smells differently on different people.
You won’t find much about parasitism in this book as its main focus is on mutualism and commensalism.
THE HUMAN SUPERORGANISM has a futuristic outcome for the main stream – how long would it take? – as long as it pervades to the public and influence governments’ policies, pharmaceutical, medical, and food industries to acknowledge this paradigm, and make required changes, meanwhile, for a minority this ‘futuristic’ approach has been here for a long time as doctors, food business owners and people of every walk of life, aware and concern with these chronic diseases, have taken charge of their health with a more holistic approach for decades.
Nowadays, this super-organism the author resembles to a tropical rain-forest or a coral reef ecosystem is endangered as disables for NCDs epidemic keep growing, until changes occurred where prevention of disease would be a priority instead of profit in expense of humanity well-being.
March 9, 2018
This book is a very interesting presentation of a new focus of medicine, the human microbiome. (a word coined in the 1950s, which, I would have guessed, is used by professionals to talk about how the symbiotic bacteria which live in an organism influence gene expression in the host, but apparently is used in a broader sense to explain how a macroorganism is influenced by its symbiotic micro-organisms)
Although the book contains useful and factual information, the author has many instances where he lets his imagination run wild and hopes to find, and for medicine to influence, causal links between the types and proportions of microorganisms in our body and chronic diseases such as diabetes, allergies, or Alzheimer's disease. There is one problem here though. There is no way to deny that it may be possible in the near future to understand the microbiome's effects on the human body and influence it so that it promotes better health, but the specific information provided in the book is pretty scarce and anecdotal. So the reader is required to make a pretty big leap of faith in order to admit many of the more daring conclusions.
Where it lacks in scientific and technical information, the book contains a lot of practical advice about how the informed reader could and should consult with their physicians, take care of their diet and, in general, live healthier. It also raises awareness about the lack of regulation, in the USA and elsewhere, concerning the effects of drugs and foods on the microbiome, which, to be fair, is one of the most interesting analyses in the book.
I would have preferred a more in-depth explanation of the biological mechanisms by which our symbiotic bacteria influence our well-being without making half of the book a health and nutrition plan. But, as an introduction, the book fared quite well. It just takes longer to extract the useful bits, because the author is quite the believer. So beware the preaching!
Although the book contains useful and factual information, the author has many instances where he lets his imagination run wild and hopes to find, and for medicine to influence, causal links between the types and proportions of microorganisms in our body and chronic diseases such as diabetes, allergies, or Alzheimer's disease. There is one problem here though. There is no way to deny that it may be possible in the near future to understand the microbiome's effects on the human body and influence it so that it promotes better health, but the specific information provided in the book is pretty scarce and anecdotal. So the reader is required to make a pretty big leap of faith in order to admit many of the more daring conclusions.
Where it lacks in scientific and technical information, the book contains a lot of practical advice about how the informed reader could and should consult with their physicians, take care of their diet and, in general, live healthier. It also raises awareness about the lack of regulation, in the USA and elsewhere, concerning the effects of drugs and foods on the microbiome, which, to be fair, is one of the most interesting analyses in the book.
I would have preferred a more in-depth explanation of the biological mechanisms by which our symbiotic bacteria influence our well-being without making half of the book a health and nutrition plan. But, as an introduction, the book fared quite well. It just takes longer to extract the useful bits, because the author is quite the believer. So beware the preaching!
May 17, 2018
The topic (the importance of a balanced microbiome in humans) is interesting. Unfortunately, the author makes too many audacious claims for my taste, while not actually backing them up with studies. The author discusses the subject as if the science is finished, but doesn't truly have a lot of action for the reader to take even if they did completely buy the concept. Hopefully, more work will be done on the subject, and if appropriate, this will take on a larger role in healthcare.
March 4, 2021
"[...]health practitioners are usually reduced to the helpless state of medically managing symptoms. In turn, this dramatically impacts personal productivity, quality of life, and socioeconomic viability. Individuals are reduced to a lifetime of drug management, which often-times creates a whole new layer of complications. Most drugs can have side effects, and as these side effects arise, they are often managed by prescription of yet more drugs. Our lives can become a series of alarms going off each day to remind us of the ever-increasing numbers of drugs we must take. Is this the life you planned for yourself? Is it what you want your children to experience?"
In this book, the author explains how we, humans are something different from what we think we are. We in reality are a colony of different organisms that live in our same space. He says that more than 90% of what we call "me" is actually "them", the tiny little different beings that have their own mind and will.
He says that with the advent of cleanliness, soap, water, disinfectant and the like, we were able to fight infectious diseases, but became more vulnerable to non-transmittable diseases like cancer, Alzheimer, depression, etc.
Finally he gives a few resources to try to make our good microbioma stronger, such as probiotics, the name of the good bacteria and other examples.
This is the cover and editorial information of the book I read:
A fragment of the very interesting introduction:
The first ideas in the book
A beautiful set of ideas:
An anecdote about bacteria and paintings.
Resources, names of good bacteria. What you want to have:
The acknowledgements
An interesting diagram about the obesity epidemic
Six primary factors that lead to the health crisis we are in right now:
Well, in summary, a very interesting and enlightening book. Everyone should benefit from this type of knowledge.
I also have a blog! Here is the link: http://lunairereadings.blogspot.com
March 19, 2017
Vaginal fluids as the messiah. How would you react if you learnt that the microbes in, on and around your body could be the key to your physical and mental well-being? This is the enthusiastic claim made here. And it's certainly a thought-provoking assertion. The metaphor of the "superorganism" represents the claim that human being cannot be understood in isolation of the bacterial and archaean colonies that live inside it and help it survive and strive.
If true, this paradigm could herald a new age in medicine and health - or just be another fad, like so many others before it. As a non-professional, it's impossible to tell the truth from reading this messianic book, because it doesn't give an unbiased and balanced picture. Instead, all bets are placed on the microbiome as the key to solving all our problems.
Some of the claims are quite confident. Too confident. The eating of fermented foods as part of a probiotic diet is postulated a the key to curing everything from stomach ulcers to preventing cancers, depression and schizophrenia. A lot of blame is placed on processed foods, the overuse of antibiotics and the overclinical nature of modern medicine. As an example of the paradigm shift at play here, a far-fetched claim is made about the importance of the vaginal microbiome of the mother, as transmitted to the baby in childbirth, in predetermining the future health of the baby.
My hunch is that the author makes a lot of unsubstantiated claims that have not been rigorously put into the test of medical practice. The style of the book is too messianic. It is, of course, exciting to be part of a paradigm shift in medicine. But one should proceed carefully. The multi-causal etiology of diseases is blatantly ignored in the book, and the importance of antibiotic medication in preventing deaths is put aside. The dangers of raw milk are likewise set aside as pasteurization is casually demonized. On the other hand, the benefits of probiotics are made to rely on anecdotes and selective studies. This is a sure sign that the full benefits and risks have not been adequately dealt with.
The book has certainly made me curious to see where the research goes next, but it was a slight disappointment to see the author get caught up in his own hype, thus making it less likely that the true importance of microbiotic health will be revealed to the scientific establishment. And it also makes it more likely that the scientifically illiterate public will fail to take proper medical advice into account.
This blindness to reason and evidence is a shame, since the central take home message of the book is important: as we understand more of the complex nature of the "ecosystem" of our own bodies, we can learn to sustain a healthy balance of food, diet and exercise, and to avoid environmental toxins that disturb this balance.
If true, this paradigm could herald a new age in medicine and health - or just be another fad, like so many others before it. As a non-professional, it's impossible to tell the truth from reading this messianic book, because it doesn't give an unbiased and balanced picture. Instead, all bets are placed on the microbiome as the key to solving all our problems.
Some of the claims are quite confident. Too confident. The eating of fermented foods as part of a probiotic diet is postulated a the key to curing everything from stomach ulcers to preventing cancers, depression and schizophrenia. A lot of blame is placed on processed foods, the overuse of antibiotics and the overclinical nature of modern medicine. As an example of the paradigm shift at play here, a far-fetched claim is made about the importance of the vaginal microbiome of the mother, as transmitted to the baby in childbirth, in predetermining the future health of the baby.
My hunch is that the author makes a lot of unsubstantiated claims that have not been rigorously put into the test of medical practice. The style of the book is too messianic. It is, of course, exciting to be part of a paradigm shift in medicine. But one should proceed carefully. The multi-causal etiology of diseases is blatantly ignored in the book, and the importance of antibiotic medication in preventing deaths is put aside. The dangers of raw milk are likewise set aside as pasteurization is casually demonized. On the other hand, the benefits of probiotics are made to rely on anecdotes and selective studies. This is a sure sign that the full benefits and risks have not been adequately dealt with.
The book has certainly made me curious to see where the research goes next, but it was a slight disappointment to see the author get caught up in his own hype, thus making it less likely that the true importance of microbiotic health will be revealed to the scientific establishment. And it also makes it more likely that the scientifically illiterate public will fail to take proper medical advice into account.
This blindness to reason and evidence is a shame, since the central take home message of the book is important: as we understand more of the complex nature of the "ecosystem" of our own bodies, we can learn to sustain a healthy balance of food, diet and exercise, and to avoid environmental toxins that disturb this balance.
November 18, 2021
Wow...what I didn't know and what people don't know about the / their micro biome is astounding. This was a great listen on Audible and really went on to explain how important bacteria and viruses are to us...we die without them. Medicine and the public are still mired in the "Germs are Bad" paradigm, which is a damn shame. I have only one criticism of this work and that he didn't have the stones to talk about how vaccines affect our immune systems, he merely skated around the edges of this subject. The question that he didn't ask or discuss is how important are early childhood diseases to our developing immune systems? Do our immune systems need these diseases to learn and to exercise on to develop fully? Is the astounding rise in autoimmune diseases in children because their immune systems are undeveloped and erroneously attack the self. He goes into how children growing up with massive amounts of bacteria and viruses on the farm suffer way fewer allergies and have a much more robust immune systems than children raised in very clean conditions or children given multiple treatments of antibiotics growing up. So much good information in this book, I highly recommend to everyone, ESPECIALLY Pediatric doctors but doctors of every stripe with a prescription pad in hand as well as drug makers. What we don't know often kills us and the lack of understanding that we are not only mammals but we are also bacteria and viruses is a huge part of our human blind spot.
November 14, 2016
A fascinating account and summary of the emerging field of microbiome research. The author uses the anecdotes, simplifications, digressions, optimism for radical transformations and personal stories that are the standard format of pop science books of this kind. I have only two complaints : first, the author seems so keen on leaving his microbiome on the shoulders of giants who support him. This includes ceaselessly defecating on giants from Darwin to Dawkins that is beyond the necessary rebuttal that is expected of him given the subject matter. Second, the book is sometimes unnecessarily athropocentric and do not dwell on the idea that all species and all biology, human and non-human alike, is that of superorganisms. But I guess if microbes drive our cravings, moods and most of our biology we are still so special than dogs who do not need science pop books to tell them about the microbiome, since they have been sniffing the beautiful biology of butts, knowing that secret. However, I understand that dogs are not a good market for pop science books.
Beyond the aforementioned complaints, the book remains fascinating and mind opening. Worth a read.
Beyond the aforementioned complaints, the book remains fascinating and mind opening. Worth a read.
September 6, 2020
Big question for me was “What Probiotics Should I Take?”, and THIS should have been the focus for the entire book imho. Instead it turned into a general knowledge book with few takeaways other than to understand the fascinating but theoretical science of the body. Good for a scientific mind to get to grips with the subject but not as practical as it could be for someone seeking to treat the Superorganism itself.
Editing the book by 50-75 pages would have cut the fluff and made valuable room for a more practical, action based information with takeaways on how to use this empowering knowledge to better our lives and the future standard of care with the current medical establishment. Instead it spent the entire book trying to convince us of the importance of the microbiome.
This book really needs a follow-up which steers us toward treatments for different diseases so we can have smarter more educated conversations with our doctors - thats part of how to make the changes this author has been hoping for an alluding to, by empowering every patient.
Editing the book by 50-75 pages would have cut the fluff and made valuable room for a more practical, action based information with takeaways on how to use this empowering knowledge to better our lives and the future standard of care with the current medical establishment. Instead it spent the entire book trying to convince us of the importance of the microbiome.
This book really needs a follow-up which steers us toward treatments for different diseases so we can have smarter more educated conversations with our doctors - thats part of how to make the changes this author has been hoping for an alluding to, by empowering every patient.
December 20, 2021
The book reads like a grant proposal from an unassociated field. I’m sure he’s right about the importance of the microbiome, but as he continues to lay on reason after reason that it’s the single root cause for basically all non-communicable ailments, I withdrawal and wish for greater evidence. Which is of course what he’s also asking for. Just go into it knowing it provides many small links between pieces of the puzzle, but paints a picture of what those pieces may make that make you yearn for the research to complete it.
I think it’s a great technical overview of an ignored part of our bodies. I think the whole thing could have been half the size and spent more time on how to push for greater research and do what you can today.
I’m still recommending my family pay greater attention to the use of antibiotics and pro-biotic in genera life. And making sure it’s part of my question set for our next child’s delivery. So I’m that sense, the book accomplished it’s goal.
I think it’s a great technical overview of an ignored part of our bodies. I think the whole thing could have been half the size and spent more time on how to push for greater research and do what you can today.
I’m still recommending my family pay greater attention to the use of antibiotics and pro-biotic in genera life. And making sure it’s part of my question set for our next child’s delivery. So I’m that sense, the book accomplished it’s goal.
April 23, 2018
Rodney Dietert's introductory work on the microbiome - that being the 90% of your body's cells that are non-human bacteria and archaea - is a well-researched and lucidly presented work that not only effectively introduces this fascinating area of modern biology and its future ramifications in pharmacology and nutrition science, but gives several practical suggestions as to how to incorporate this knowledge into your own personal nutrition. There are several works on the market right now that are discussing this issue with more specificity in certain areas (effect on the brain, effect on longevity, etc...) but Dietert's work is perhaps the best broad-view introduction though he does focus on the rise of NCD's (non-communicable diseases) as a result of the damage we have done to our microbiome. Interesting reading that is very well-presented.
August 16, 2021
Some interesting concepts but research into this area is looked at almost entirely In isolation from external factors. Most non-communicable diseases talked about as if your gut micro biome is the only factor. So Asthma is considered with barely a mention of pollution in the air. Some good research but often one successful case study is extrapolated to look at larger area. It was worth reading and I would like to read other research on the topic. His tone tended to defend people who had been selfish (the bloke who are nuts on plane after warning not to and it killed passenger allergic to nuts), suggesting their need for a ‘snack’ could have been as a diabetic who was coeliac so it was ok? Rather than say, snacking on anything else.
April 10, 2019
Best non-fiction book I've read this year. Dietert explains how medical therapies such as antibiotics save lives but result in numerous non-communicable diseases that lead to the demise of three times as many people as infections. In particular, antibiotics, the overuse of vaccines, and numerous chemicals affect the normal balance found in the gut microbiome. With more than 90 percent of the genes in humans consisting of microbial genes, even slight changes can have profound effects. Dietert offers ways in which we can still pursue a healthy life when the microbiome is taken in consideration.
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