The following Mark's Daily Apple article was written by Mark Sisson, and is narrated by Tina Lehman.

The language of microbial culture, explaining prebiotics, probiotics, symbiotics, and postbiotics.

It's no secret that it's one of my favorite subjects, the burgeoning field of human gastrointestinal microbiology.

I know, it's easy to get caught up in the comparative excitement of it all.

The microbiotia is familiar territory to most primal types, but with time and research, we come to understand the nuances of the terrain a little better.

New terms pop up. Novel discoveries grab our intention. Promising connections become apparent.

It feels like a good day to go over a bit of the latest, to provide a little refresher for those who have joined us recently, and most of all to offer some additional perspective on what we're learning as studies branch into new depths.

The four terms. Number one, probiotics.

Okay, most of you don't need a refresh on this one, but for many, probiotics is simply a buzzword

for something they vaguely remember as healthy, for some hazy, complicated reason.

For those lost souls, here's the quick and dirty.

The average human gut contains between 1,000 and 1,150 different species of bacteria and yeast, with the total population count numbering in the trillions, that for the most part are

either harmless or contributing valuable functions to your body and mind.

Competition for prime gut real estate encourages a healthy antipathogenic intestinal tract and sound immune function throughout.

Essentially, it's like an old-growth forest ecosystem,

whereby the natural competition of both indigenous plant and animal species

works together to maintain a state of healthy equilibrium for the forest biome as a whole, preventing colonization by exotic, aka pathogenic species.

Some of the functions that play out include secretion of antimicrobial proteins that protect against pathogenic bacteria, maintaining

and restoring intestinal homeostasis, interaction with our inbuilt immune receptors,

and metabolizing indigestible compounds and extracting nutrients from the foods we eat.

Modern science has thus far managed to create artificial cultures of around 40% of these beneficial gut bacterial strains.

These cultures are essentially what we know to be probiotics,

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