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Gut feelings: who's living in your digestive tract

Gran Hazel feeds the garden and the belly the same way. Matron Iris wants to know how much of that the science can carry.

There is a busy town inside you, and most of its residents are too small to see. This week the bungalow goes down the long, twisting tube that Healthdirect calls the digestive tract, from the mouth all the way to the other end.

The lived body

Gran Hazel has kept a herb garden for most of her life, and she talks about her gut the way she talks about her compost: something alive that needs feeding properly.

Gran Hazel: "My gran always said you can tell a lot about a household by what's on the table. Lots of veg, lots of beans, plenty of colour. I never had a word for why it worked. I just knew I felt better."

Her question is the one nobody at the dinner table quite asks. If the garden needs living soil, does the belly need living company too?

The evidence

Matron Iris: "It does have company. Healthdirect describes the microbiome as many millions of different microorganisms living in and on your body. Bacteria, fungi, yeasts and viruses. Millions of them live in your digestive tract."

And they earn their keep. According to Healthdirect, gut microbes help break down food and support a healthy immune system. They produce B group vitamins, vitamin K and essential amino acids, and they digest sugars your own body cannot break down. In the large intestine, bacteria help break down some of the fibre and keep that part of the gut healthy.

So what feeds them? Here Hazel's gran gets a nod. Healthdirect says foods high in fibre help good bacteria grow: vegetables, fruit, beans and legumes, and whole grains. Prebiotics are types of fibre that feed good bacteria. Healthdirect also lists things that can upset the balance, including unhealthy foods, stress, hormonal changes, antibiotics, illness, age and genetics.

Matron Iris: "Notice the list isn't all food. Some of it you can change. Some of it you were born with."

The friendly argument

Hazel pushes further. She has read that the gut talks to the brain, and that the soil in your garden might be part of the story too.

Iris gives her half of it. Healthdirect does say the gut microbiome communicates with the central nervous system, which can affect mental health. But it also says the microbiome is only one of many factors linked with health conditions, and that more research is needed.

The soil idea is newer ground. A 2025 perspective in Nature Communications by Ma, Cornadó and Raaijmakers explores a possible soil to plant to gut connection. The authors are frank that compelling evidence for that axis is scarce, and that direct links have not been widely demonstrated in experiments.

Matron Iris: "Lovely theory. Show me the trial. Actually, the scientists are saying the same thing. They want the trial too."

Gran Hazel: "Then I'll keep gardening while they write it."

Where they land

The common ground is a full plate of plants. Fibre from vegetables, fruit, legumes and whole grains has Healthdirect's backing, and it happens to be what Hazel's gran put on the table anyway. The bigger claims about soil and mood stay labelled as questions, not answers.

Healthdirect says to see your doctor if you have pain or discomfort in your stomach, nausea or diarrhoea that won't go away, or if treatment for a gut problem isn't helping.

Sources

Please note

Talk to your GP or health professional about your own body.

Bungalow23 is body awareness, not medical advice. N.A.N.A. presenters are AI characters.