Ever since I read about my gut bacteria and all they do for me, I’ve considered them part of the family. It’s an affable group—we get along. If you ever hear me refer to myself in the plural, I’m using the Bacterial We.

Although I’m aware that things can go haywire as we age, I hadn’t thought to blame the gut bacteria for it, but evidently the complement of microbes changes over time. Studies show the older person tends to harbor different families of bacteria, and fewer of them. Which is not ideal. Diversity is important in gut-bugs as in everything else. But maybe our aging gut bacteria just prefer to hang out with their peers because the younger microbes don’t make sense anymore and their music is awful.

Evidently we elderly have loaded up on Enterococcaceae, Lactobacillaceae, and Enterobacteriacea, and any one of those can spell trouble for humans. The Enteros are a nice enough family, but invite a few of of the wrong sort to the Thanksgiving dinner and you could be risking a food fight. The famous E. coli, for instance, can cause diarrhea and urinary tract infections, and even the best of them would rather watch the game and fart than help with the dishes.

Some researchers believe these microbial changes drive the aging process, although it could be the other way around. A person could develop inflammation in the small intestine. The small intestine is about fifteen feet long, stretched out. But it’s not stretched out. It’s all hairpin turns in there. It’s possible the older person’s bacteria are doing a perfectly good job, but the metabolism is slower and they have the turn signal on the whole way.

The large intestine is where all your digested food gets wrung out and shaped into a tidy turd boat, thence to the bowel delivery system. Which brings up an interesting point. Previous studies of gut bacteria have generally sampled the completed turd-boat post-exit, but this research into the Aging Gut Biome was conducted with samples taken from the small intestines of 250+ patients undergoing endoscopies. Nobody wants to undergo an endoscopy. These people might not have been in great shape to begin with.

I’m pretty healthy myself. I think my diet is good, with very little in the way of processed foods, except a little ice cream, which I believe keeps bacteria happy. It keeps everyone else happy. And fermented foods are famously good for your gut biome.

Beer is fermented, right?

The way I look at it, bring on all the bacteria. We honor diversity in this house. And the only thing that can stop a bad bacterium with evil intent is a good bacterium with a beer buzz.