Microbiome Diversity Matters

People in industrialized nations carry markedly fewer bacterial species than communities still living traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyles. Each generation loses diversity that took thousands of years to accumulate, and the decline keeps pace with processed food and antibiotic use.

One course of broad-spectrum antibiotics can wipe out bacterial lineages that may never return on their own. Children who receive antibiotics before age two show higher rates of obesity and allergies later in childhood, suggesting these early microbial losses have lasting metabolic consequences.