The gut biome isn’t well understood - there are tons (well, pounds) of bacteria we don’t understand well, how they interplay, how they eat and digest and how the body is affected. We’re just now at the point of having biome capsules that can be swallowed instead of fecal transplants, which is an improvement, but we don’t really know what we’re doing. They might take a family member and use their bacteria to treat someone’s GERD for instance - but only in studies and private labs, not at your doctor’s office yet. Now that they know how beneficial it is, they’re hauling ass (hehe) on it.

We only recently figured out that natural births do better than caesarians in terms of immunity and overall health, because well, women often defecate while they give birth and apparently that’s a good thing for the baby, as well as bacteria in her vagina. There’s sort of an instant bacterial infusion that happens.

Give it 20 years and there’ll probably be bespoke treatments available for the masses, so I won’t have to listen to my boss give his daily update on his IBS.