Immunity-and-beyond

Hi! Thanks for your question - this is a tricky one. I have seen a lot of data at scientific conferences showing that probiotics can indeed have beneficial effects on health and also in disease, but whether they work for you or not will depend a lot on your existing gut microbiota. And literally each of us harbours a different mix of millionds of bacteria in their gut - something sometimes referred to as "poo-print", similar to a fingerprint which is unique for every person. This makes choosing the right probiotics (=bacteria supplements) (and also prebiotics=nutrients design to feed bacteria in your good, to promote the growth of beneficial bacteria) for each person very difficult. What is more, most probiotics or prebiotics sold in stores were never actually tested in clinical studies. So we just don't know if they are actually beneficial or not. I am not a medical doctor, so I really can't make any informed recommendations - I would probably suggest to talk to your doctor about this, or just give them a go and pay close attention to whether they make you feel better (or maybe even worse).

Unfortunately I am not aware of the one "superfood" that will take care of it all for you, even though I know that there is a lot of research at the moment going into which diet might be most beneficial for your gut microbiome and health. I would stick to my mum's advice - trying to have a varied diet is definitely a good start. In terms of how long it takes for the gut microbiota to "heal" itself - this will obvioulsy depent on how disbalanced ("dysbiotic") the gut microbiota is. There is exciting research showing that changing the diet (e.g. from eating a lot of meat to a vegetarian diet), can have long-lasting effects on the composition of your gut microbiota within just weeks. So it's never to late to give it a go!

They work amazingly well in patients suffering from C. difficile infections and faecal transplants are already used routinely to treat this in patients. In other settings, the effect of faecal transplants has not been fully elucidated yet. This is a really new (and exciting) field of research and I would first wait for more scientific data to be collected about this before trying any of it on myself.

There is more and more data showing that the gut microbiota can affect hormon levels and also the brain, giving the prase "gut feelings" a new meaning. Unfortunately I am really no expert in this field, so I am afraid I won't be able to give you any more details on this, sorry.

Good questions - this is not my area of expertise, but from what I remember the gut bacteria can actually influence your cravings (especially as there is a strong connection between the gut microbiome and the brain - giving the phrase "gut feeling" a completely new meaning). Unfortunately, I do not know how exactly this works or which bacteria are involved in this. Same for the effect of artificial sweeteners on cravings, sorry!