Why do we age? As young people, we look invincible. We climb trees, frolick in the dirt, and share an astonishing amount of mucus without hesitation. In college, you can keep yourself alive with ramen and beer, party all night long, and have an exam the next day. However, by the time you reach your 30s, your physical strength will begin to decline. It becomes difficult to maintain muscle tone and avoid illness. Joints begin to ache and memories begin to fade. And it’s mostly downhill from there.
People have long tried to stop or reverse this process. But the fountain of youth and the secret of immortality remain firmly in the realm of fiction. Even if we no longer do the strenuous physical labor that our ancestors did, our bodies will fail. And the world seems determined to crush us with a plague of germs. To fight off these pathogens, our bodies recruit other microbes, a vast number of which reside in our gut, and we trade them for nutrients. I am giving However, as we age, this intestinal flora also becomes less effective in fighting disease.
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This opens up interesting possibilities. Perhaps the secret to longevity lies not in the body itself, but in the microbes in the gut. There is still much to learn about this complex assemblage of bacteria, viruses, fungi and archaea, but it turns out that people in healthy old age often have unique gut microbiota. I’m here. Furthermore, we are finding ways to manipulate this world within…
