This originally appeared in the July/August issue of Discover magazine as "Fire in the Belly" Support our science journalism by becoming a subscriber.
How’s your tummy feeling today? Odds are, not that great. A new study estimates that Americans spent $135.9 billion on treatment for gastrointestinal diseases in 2015, over the course of more than 54.4 million trips to the doctor. Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) alone is thought to affect 10 to 15 percent of all people worldwide, many of whom are undiagnosed.
Your digestive system achieves no small feat each and every day, as it turns things you eat into usable energy and nutrients for the rest of your body. It’s an incredibly complex system, which also means there’s incredible complexity in the ways things can get out of whack.
But while gut issues are on the rise, so is our understanding of them. Researchers have made huge strides toward figuring out the causes of — and solutions for — some of the most common culprits behind your stomachache. And most of this progress is thanks to new mechanistic understandings of how the bacteria in your gut really operate.
