Sep 10, 2026 · 14 min · 6 segments
Can Your Microbiome Rewrite Your Immune System's Food Allergies? Food allergies can be devastating. For families managing severe reactions, every meal carries risk, and even one mistake can have…
James McIlroyHost
Most human microbiome research, as you know as a listener of Inside Matters, is based on stool samples.
But of course, it predominantly reflects the microbial ecology of the large bowel, what proceeds closest to the exit environment.
Going upstream, the small bowel, the small intestine, is a very different environment.
It's the principal site at which we absorb nutrients and encounter those dietary antigens from food, as well as bacteria from the environment, I must add.
It's also central to the recycling of bile acids, which are produced within the liver system, and contains a substantial proportion of the body's immune tissue.
This creates an incredible, unique, active interface where food microbes, microbial metabolites, the intestinal barrier, that one cell lining that protects the rest of your body from what you eat.
Yet, despite being hugely important, small bowel is much more difficult to access and study.
You have to put tubes up the nose or into your mouth and down the esophagus, past the stomach, and then into the small intestine.
Most human microbiome research, as you know as a listener of Inside Matters, is based on stool samples.
But of course, it predominantly reflects the microbial ecology of the large bowel, what proceeds closest to the exit environment.
Going upstream, the small bowel, the small intestine, is a very different environment.
It's the principal site at which we absorb nutrients and encounter those dietary antigens from food, as well as bacteria from the environment, I must add.
It's also central to the recycling of bile acids, which are produced within the liver system, and contains a substantial proportion of the body's immune tissue.
This creates an incredible, unique, active interface where food microbes, microbial metabolites, the intestinal barrier, that one cell lining that protects the rest of your body from what you eat.
Yet, despite being hugely important, small bowel is much more difficult to access and study.
You have to put tubes up the nose or into your mouth and down the esophagus, past the stomach, and then into the small intestine.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.