But modern life has eradicated this species from 96 percent of people in the Western world. Today, only 4 percent—fewer than one in twenty people—continue to enjoy the presence of this marvelous species.16,17 Among the many benefits of L. reuteri is its unique capacity to trigger the release of the hormone oxytocin from the human brain, which has been demonstrated through an elegant series of experiments conducted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Think about that: a microbe living in your GI tract determines an important aspect of your brain’s functioning.18 Oxytocin is the
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