Ashok Gupta explains how your gut microbiome fights viruses. About 80% of your immune system lives in your gut, where roughly 100 trillion microbes produce antiviral chemicals. Diet shapes this balance: avoid inflammatory foods and eat what nourishes your microbiome to stay protected.
Now, you might be asking, how on earth do we heal using food? Well, believe it or not, 80% of our immune system lives in our gut, the space between our mouth and where food leaves the body. And we have around 1-3 kg of bacteria living there. Not just bacteria, but fungi and other microbes. And they collectively make up something called our microbiome, which is this writhing swamp of mucus with a hundred trillion microbes that help keep us alive. Isn't it amazing? And this microbiome is the key, as it's the thing that makes the antiviral chemicals that fight off viruses. Our microbiome is very delicate, and as human beings, we live in a symbiotic relationship with it. And when we take care of our microbiome, it gives us a healthy immune system. So treat it like a best friend and it will give you the shirt off its back. But if you ignore your microbiome, tease it, deny its needs, or abuse it with junk food, it won't be able to be there for you when you need it the most. And just like you wouldn't put the wrong type of gas in your car. In the same way, the right food creates the right balance of good and bad bacteria in your gut, which gives us the immunities which we need for life. So today, we're making the microbiome our newest best friend. There are some good foods that nourish our microbiome, and then there are some harmful foods. For instance, there are certain types of food that excites immune system unnecessarily, causing what is called chronic inflammation in the body. That means that our immune system is overworking unnecessarily as a result of a bad diet. And then there's not enough juice left in the system to fight off other attacks. And this can make our body vulnerable to even greater threats like viruses and also have a higher chance of illness, such as heart disease, arthritis, even depression. So, in summary, we want to cut out foods that hurt our gut biome and cut out foods that increase inflammation. Instead, we want to increase foods which reduce that inflammation in our system and foods which boost the immune system's power. Now, some of you may already have heard this advice, but it's great to have a refresher. It reminds us, and we're focusing here on what has been shown to specifically fend off viruses. Okay, so let's jump in.
