Going With Your Gut

It’s common knowledge that our skin is our largest organ.

The average adult carries about 8 pounds (3.6 kilograms) and 22 square feet (2 square meters) of it.

But that’s not even close to the whole story.

What most people don’t know is that we possess skin inside us as well — the epithelium that lines our digestive tract.

It is this internal skin that, with the help of countless microbes, takes in and process every item we consume.

So much is coming to light about our gut and its complex bacterial communities.

(More on this later.)

For now, consider solely its size:

If sliced open and spread out, the surface area of our internal skin is large enough to cover a tennis court.

I don’t know about you, but my gut tells me an organ that large would very likely have a say in our thinking.

At least on some level.

And maybe on many.