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Your Microbiome Could Play a Role in Your Covid-19 Response
Gut health could be an important piece in the Covid-19 puzzle
It’s a mystery that has puzzled the world’s virologists.
The United States and Western Europe — home to many of the planet’s best doctors and hospitals and the most robust public health infrastructures — have been among the regions hit hardest by the novel coronavirus.
Some have speculated that climate, population demographics, government response (or lack thereof), and other factors can explain the high numbers of infections in the developed world. And there is probably some truth to each of these hypotheses. But none seems to fully explain why half of the countries that make the top 10 in Covid-19 deaths per capita — a top 10 that includes the United States — are also among the wealthiest and most medically advanced in the world.
Heenam Stanley Kim, PhD, is a professor and microbial geneticist at Korea University in Seoul. He has his own hypothesis — one that has to do with the bacteria that live in the human gut. “Evidence accumulated around the world [suggests] that people who have an altered gut microbiota have a higher risk for serious Covid-19,” he says.
