In this book, physician, UCLA professor, and researcher Dr. Emeran Mayer proposes a radical paradigm shift: that the gut microbiome is at the center of virtually every disease that defines our 21st-century public health crisis. This book offers a comprehensive look at the link between alterations to the gut microbiome and the development chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, as well as susceptibility to infectious diseases. Dr. Mayer argues that it’s essential we understand the profound and far-reaching effects of gut health and offers clear-cut strategies to reverse the steady upward rise of these illnesses, including a model for nutrition to support the microbiome.