Welcome to Season 4 of Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

I'm Josh Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement, and a former Commissioner of Health in Baltimore City.

Our goal is to bring

scientific evidence and experience to current topics in public health through engaging interviews

with scientists, community leaders, policy experts, public health officials, clinicians, and more.

If you have ideas or questions for us to cover, please email us at public health question at jhhhu.edu.

That's public health question at jhhu.edu for future podcast episodes.

Today, our topic is the microbiome. In fact, if there is only one podcast you listen to this year

about the microbiome, let it be this one.

I speak to Yotam Suez, a faculty member here at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health,

about the billions, I'm sorry, trillions of microorganisms that live inside us and all over our skin.

Do they cause disease?

Can they cure disease?

And what did diet sodas have to do with it?

Let's listen.

Dr. Suez, thank you so much for joining me to talk about the microbiome.

So I know that the microbiome is in our gastrointestinal tract,

but I probably couldn't stand up and give a lecture about it. What is the microbiome from your

perspective as an expert? Well, first of all, Josh, thanks for the opportunity to talk about

the microbiome today.

So when we say microbiome, we're thinking

about the trillions of microorganisms that live

...