Dr. Trisha Pasricha

It means that all 70% of the immune cells and the protective barrier for you against everything the outside world is throwing at you is in the gut.

So it's one of the most important defenses you have against the outside world.

And I think people don't appreciate that.

So the flu is going around.

That's exactly right.

A lot of what we eat is obviously not sterile, right?

Like we're putting all kinds of different things into our body.

We cook it.

It's

you know, relatively clean, but it's obviously got so many different things from the outside world, chemicals, bacteria, whatever it is.

Someone is stopping you from getting sick most of the time, and that's your gut.

When it comes to respiratory infections, a lot of the immune response does start in the lungs and it starts elsewhere.

But think about a lot of our respiratory illnesses like flu.

So many people get diarrhea with the flu because your gut does get activated and it's part of the response.

That's right.

Wow.

It talks to the rest of the body, so it helps coordinate the entire response.

But you can think about it like we think of the skin as being that first barrier against the outside world, but really the gut, if you look at the cross-sectional area of your gut, I

It's huge.

If you were to spread it all out, it's huge.