Alex Smithers, M.D.

​I have always had an interest in the microbiome. Part of this is most likely due to the fact that it was put into my awareness at a very early age. My mother would often speak about its importance in so many different health conditions and her grandmother, my great-grandmother, was preaching about the importance of the microbiome as early as the 1930s. They were both strong, progressive and forward thinking women and while many people thought they were crazy at that time, the current research is revealing that they were in fact, correct the entire time.

After graduating medical school and going to practice, I began to see a common theme among all of the chronically ill patients. The vast majority of them seemed to have some type of gastrointestinal involvement. This was true of many of the conditions that you would never associate with so-called gut health and when we addressed their gastrointestinal health, everything seemed to improve. Luckily, there is a lot of current research that reinforces this observation, and every day there is more and more information revealing that our microbiome affects literally every aspect of our physiology. Everything from our gastrointestinal Health to our immune function and even as far reaching as our mood and personalities.