Dark Matter

A pioneering guide to hacking your microbiome for a healthier life, and an urgent call to protect this vital inner world before it's too late.Our microbiome, the complex ecosystem of bacteria, viruses and other microbes inside us, is critically important to our health and wellbeing. Gifted to us by our mothers at birth, it adapts with us as we age, influences our moods and appetites, determines how fast we run and even who we choose as a partner.In this groundbreaking book, surgeon and microbiologist James Kinross takes us on a guided tour of our extraordinary inner universe. He shows how our relationship with microbes may hold the key to why we increasingly succumb to diseases like Alzheimer's, cancer, and autoimmune conditions, and highlights the disastrous consequences of our war on germs and addiction to antibiotics. He shows how it is only now, as we are beginning to discover the microbiome's enormous potential, that we are realising it is in grave danger.Drawing on cutting-edge research and years of clinical experience, Kinross shows how to optimise the microbiome to protect your health, boost your immunity and safeguard your mental wellbeing. His illuminating, urgent book shows that if we work with, not against, our microbes, we can live better, healthier lives.