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Your intestine has an apparent job: It processes the meals you eat. Nevertheless it has one other vital operate: It protects you from the micro organism, viruses, or allergens you ingest together with that meals. “The biggest a part of the immune system in people is the GI tract, and our greatest publicity to the world is what we put in our mouth,” says Michael Helmrath, a pediatric surgeon at Cincinnati Kids’s Hospital Medical Middle who treats sufferers with intestinal illnesses.

Generally this method malfunctions or doesn’t develop correctly, which may result in gastrointestinal situations like ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s illness, and celiac—all of that are on the rise worldwide. Learning these situations in animals can solely inform us a lot, since their diets and immune programs are very totally different from ours.