To Improve Your Gut Microbiome, Spend More Time in Nature

A Finnish research project showed that letting kindergarten-aged children play in a yard that contained “dirt” from the forest floor resulted in a significant positive impact on their gut microbiome.

This suggests that we should all spend a lot more time interacting with nature, both outdoors and indoors.

The importance of this study cannot be overstated.

When we spend time interacting with the environmental microbiome, new evidence suggests it passes onto our skin and into our gut through ingestion and greatly improves our own gut microbiota.

This hypothesis, called the “biodiversity hypothesis” was first proposed over two decades ago .

But how do we know that it is not some other feature, such as diet or pets, that is for this difference?.

The environmental microbiome could also easily be inhaled and ingested, says Andrew Keen .

Keen: When we interact in naturally biodiverse landscapes, our bodies adopt the microbial signature of the surrounding environment.

Keen says that exposure to environmental microbiota may modulate our gut microbial ecology, and this may then influence our immune system.

But short-term interaction brings about changes, Keen says.