• Question: If We Had No Bactiria In Our Stomachs What Would Happen??

    Asked by wally95 to MarkF, Mark, Michael, Panos, Sarah on 18 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Mark Fogg

      Mark Fogg answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      We wouldn’t be able to digest our food very well and probably die of malnutrition very quickly, within a matter of days or weeks.

    • Photo: Mark Travis

      Mark Travis answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      We generally don’t have that many bacteria in our stomach- it is in the lower intestine that we have loads (estimated that there are 100 trillion bacteria in our gut). The major function is to help us digest ceratin foods.

    • Photo: Panos Soultanas

      Panos Soultanas answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      Hi Wally95,

      Most of our bacterai are in the gut rather than the stomach. The stomach is too acidic and they cannot survive very well there.

      If we had no bacteria in our guts then we would be prone to more gut infections causing us discomfort and diarrhoea. A lot of good bacteria in our gut are also useful because they produce useful vitamins and other ‘goodies’ that are good for our health. They also help to digest further partly digested food that enters the gut from the stomach making easier for our gut cells to absorb all the good substances they need to give us energy.

    • Photo: Michael Loughlin

      Michael Loughlin answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      well we don’t have many in our stomachs..quite acidic there.. if all the bacteria in our colon left the we’d have real trouble with our diets as they break down anumber of foodstuffs which we then reabsorb

    • Photo: Sarah Burl

      Sarah Burl answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      We have very few bacteria in our stomachs because it is so acidic and most bacteria woudl not survive. Some bacteria that do get into the stomach can cause ulcers. Most of the ‘good’ bacteria is in the rest of the intestine and that is essential for digesting food and for fighting against other ‘bad’ bacteria in the gut.

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