The Digestive Function of Human Gut Microbiota

Abstract

According to the contemporary data, the daily needs of the human organism required for construction and functioning of millions of simple and complex molecular entities amount to over 20 thousand of different macro- and micronutrients (Shenderov 2018). Around 70% of the total microbiota inhabiting the human organism is localized on its digestive tract mucosa. A. M. Ugolev deserves credit for providing convincing evidence of symbiotic microorganisms actively participating in the metabolization of complex compounds (polysaccharides, phenolic and other components) coming with food. In recent years, the importance of the digestive function of symbiotic gut bacteria has been gaining further confirmation (Bengmark 1998; Bik et al. 2018, Sonnenburg and Backhed 2016, Yadav et al. 2018). By digesting endogenous sources, gut microbiota returns all the necessary components. It has been proven that over 400 or 450 grams of endogenous substrates and those coming with food undergo daily microbial metabolization in the digestive tract of adults, which makes up as much as one third of the total mass of the consumable food products (Table 1).