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Gordon also found in his mouse populations that changing the animals' diet caused a dramatic and rapid shift in the population of bacteria in their gut. Switching a mouse from low-fat plant chow to a high-fat Western diet resulted in an explosion of Firmicutes in less than a day.
That suggests that factors like gut microbes, which scientists traditionally would not think of exerting influence on genes, may have a surprisingly powerful effect, changing how a body's genes would normally control the way it digest food and breaks it down into energy. It makes sense, when you consider that the vast majority of the cells and genes in the typical human body belong to the microbiota. "There is a vast reservoir of attributes associated with our human physiology that is derived from our gut microbial communities," he says. "Our genetic landscape is actually an amalgam so it's slightly different from the genetic determinism of human genes flowing from parent to offspring. It's also the microbial genes that are acquired from early environmental exposures and transmitted within families as well."
Ultimately, says Gordon, with additional research, this work co
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