It's not something we usually want to think about, but all of us are born with a variety of "bugs" in our intestines. Shortly after birth, hundreds of species of bacteria and archaea establish themselves in the colon. There are over 400 species of microbes that are normally concentrated in the colon, but surprisingly, the small intestine is not supposed to have very much. When you get too much bacteria in the small intestine, it is called small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, or SIBO. This can cause a lot of health problems, and has been shown to make acute pancreatitis worse, to cause irritable bowel syndrome, to make inflammatory bowel disease worse, and to be related to fibromyalgia.
Othman M, Aguero R, Lin H. Alterations in intestinal microbial flora and human disease (gastrointestinal infections: edited by Edgar C. Boedeker).
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