Apes Have Better Gut Bugs than Humans

It's not a secret that the microbes living in our guts play a huge role in our well-being, or that, at least in the United States, we're doing a good job of killing them off.

But now new research finds that apes -- our closest relative -- have much more varied gut flora than humans do, and especially more varied than people living in the United States.

"It took millions of years, since humans and chimpanzees split from a common ancestor, to become 60 percent different in these colonies living in our digestive systems," said Howard Ochman, professor of integrative biology at The University of Texas at Austin and co-author of the study in a press release.

"On the other hand, in apparently only hundreds of years -- and possibly a lot fewer -- people in the United States lost a great deal of diversity in the bacteria living in their gut."

In fact, those of us living in the United States have intestinal microbes that are 70 percent different than chimps'.

That's not good news: a lack of a varied gut microbiome has been linked to asthma, colon cancer and autoimmune disease. There's also evidence that our intestinal microbiome communicates with our brains and that imbalanced gut flora can mess with our minds, causing depression and other mental illnesses.

Scientists studied fecal samples from humans, chimps, bonobos and gorillas to discover our intestinal differences.

Why have American gut microbes changed so quickly -- hundreds, as opposed to millions, of years? The researchers speculate that we spend more time indoors, use antibacterial cleansers and rely too much on antibiotics (which kill gut flora), to name a few reasons.

Read more at Discovery News