Book Review – Gut: The inside story of our body’s most underrated organ

As I shared in my 2021 reading list post, I have a goal for this year: to make my way through the 21 books on the list. That amounts to reading about two books a month, which seems doable. To keep myself accountable I thought of also sharing reviews of the books as I finish them and hopefully also inspire some of you on the way to pick up a new book to read – whether it’s what I am reading or something else.

So here we go with book 1/21.

Gut: The inside story of our body’s most underrated organ by Giulia Enders

Rating 5/5

The first book I read in 2021 is “Gut: The inside story of our body’s most underrated organ” by Giulia Enders. I’ve had this book on my nightstand for a couple of years already but never made it further than 1/3 through it – not because of the topic but rather my laziness. With my goal for 2021 being to read quite a few books focused on health, business and self-help, this one seemed to be the perfect choice to start. 

First of all, I am a strong believer in educating ourselves in how our bodies function. Of course, seeking medical advice should only come from professionals, but I think there is no harm in trying to understand better how our organs and bodies work, what influences them and so on. 

I’ve always been interested in leading a healthy lifestyle and eating healthy food but beyond my school biology education, I did not know the details of our inner workings. Why are probiotics good for you, what do each vitamins support in our bodies and so on. That is why, when I saw this book, I thought it was a perfect read for me.   

“Gut” has been a truly fascinating read. It breaks down the digestive system and what happens at every stage, from the moment you even smell food, to taking that first bite of it and all the way through its travel in the stomach, small intestine and the large intestine and well… pooping. The incredibly interesting parts of the book are the studies linking the gut communication pathways to the brain, the role of the gut flora and how much they can impact our overall health and also mental health. 

A couple of fascinating discoveries for me have been:

The gut’s connection to our mental health

There are links between the gut and the brain, and actually, the information exchange is 90 per cent gut to brain, but only 10 per cent the other way; the brain doesn’t have much to tell the gut. For example, people with IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) have high levels of anxiety and depression based on the signals that the gut sends to the brain. Just knowing about this type of research can help us in our daily lives. It can help us think differently about ourselves, our moods and conditions. Knowing it and understanding it better, is so eye opening.

The role of bacteria in our bodies, how they help us, train our immune system and more.

A big part of the book also talks about bacteria and how important good bacteria are. It turns out that, while the gut flora vary from person to person, there are about two kilograms of microbes—100 trillion individuals from around a thousand species—in each one of us. That’s quite the number! The book is also eye opening in terms of new research (not conclusive on humans yet) on the relationship between specific families/types of bacteria and an inclination to being overweight, having anxiety/depression and more.

Conclusion

It’s worth saying that the book is very easy to “digest” (pun intended). The author does a great job at presenting information in a light hearted way to make it fun for the reader. She also presents a lot of scientific research currently happening to open the reader’s eyes on new findings when it comes to the gut and our overall health.

For anyone interested in understanding more about how our bodies work, I would definitely recommend giving it a read. It’s a must read have if you have any digestion problems as it can give you greater understanding about your body and the effect you can have on it, and it can have on you. It will also give you a lot of reasons as to why you should make healthy food choices and how it impacts our gut and overall health. It’s an overall brilliant read and totally recommended.

Have you read it or are you planning to add it to your reading list?