Preface vii I The Wisdom of a Microscopic Species 1 Evolutionary Biology Explains Bacterial Adaptability 3 2 The Ancestral Microbiome 21 3 Early Factors Influencing the Microbiome 49 4 Cracking the Codes: From the Human Genome to the Human Microbiome 81 5 Beyond Bacteria: Those Other Omes 103 6 The Microbiome Hypothesis: The Epigenetic Role of the Microbiome 131 II The Microbiome s Role in Disease 7 The Microbiome and Gut Inflammatory Disorders 165 8 The Microbiome and Obesity 187 9 The Microbiome and Autoimmunity 207 10 The Microbiome and Neurological and Behavioral Disorders 237 11 The Microbiome and Environmental Enteropathy 259 12 The Microbiome and Cancer 273 III Manipulating the Microbiome to Maintain Health 13 From Association to Causation: A New Approach to Microbiome Composition and Function in Disease Development 293 14 Preventive Medicine: Monitoring the Microbiome for Disease Prediction and Interception 313 15 Treatments for Disease: Prebiotics, Probiotics, Synbiotics, and Postbiotics 345 16 Microbiome Research in Gut-Brain Axis Diseases: Psychobiotics 381 17 Artificial Intelligence, Synthetic Biology, and the Microbiome 391 18 Maintaining a Resilient Microbiome through Old Age 411 Epilogue: Why Studying Our Microbiome Is Important for Our Future 425 Acknowledgments 443 Notes 445
Alessio Fasano is the W. Allan Walker Chair of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition and Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. He is also Founder and Director of the Center for Celiac Research and Treatment at Massachusetts General Hospital. Award-winning writer and editor Susie Flaherty is Director of Communications at the Center for Celiac Research and Treatment at Massachusetts General Hospital. Fasano and Flaherty are the authors of Gluten Freedom.