It Takes Guts: How Your Body Turns Food Into Fuel (and Poop)
by Dr. Jennifer Gardy (Author) and Belle Wuthrich (Illustrator)
@ Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound
Booktalk: A science-based resource for classroom learning and home-schooling for kids age 9 to 13, with information about:
- The surprising role that food and digestion play in your mood and immune system.
- The amazing tools your body uses to break down food including acids, which do their thing without burning a hole in your stomach!
- The incredible truth that not all bacteria is bad! Billions of “helpful bacteria” belong in your gut.
- And so much more.
Snippet: Microbes can even influence our mood! We’ve already seen how our gut talks to our brain through nerves and hormones, and it turns out that these conversations can be influenced by our resident microbes. In one study, researchers gave one group of healthy volunteers milk or yogurt enriched with friendly Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus bacteria every day for 30 days. The other group was given a placebo–a pill that did nothing. At the end of the month, the group that took the bacterial pill reported fewer bad moods and stressful moments, and they were producing less cortisol–a hormone produced when you’re under stress–than they were at the start of the experiment.
It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)
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