Finnish dietary recommendations do not include advice on soil microbe diversity, which has considerable health benefits and is currently missing from the digestive systems of many people in Finland.
This could be one factor behind many modern health problems, researchers suggest, and changing the recommendations could have positive impacts.
That's the conclusion of scientists from the Natural Resources Institute of Finland (Luke) and Tampere University who conducted a research review on the topic. Research Scientist Marja Roslund and Principal Scientists Ari Sinkkonen and Olli Laitinen were involved in the project, which was funded by the dairy firm Valio.
"Imbalances in the gut microbiota have been linked to obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, inflammatory bowel diseases, central nervous system disorders and allergies, among others," read a press release from the researchers.
While eating soil directly can be dangerous due to the possible presence of microplastics, petrol products and pharmaceutical residues, organic vegetables tend to contain a diverse range of soil microbes.
"The literature search did not find any studies in which volunteers intentionally ingest safe and tested soil microbiota for health promotion. The studies have focused more on the risks of soil ingestion than the benefits, indicating a critical research gap," said Roslund.
Adults' bowels have around 1.5kg of gut microbes, which come in thousands of different strains. Probiotic products only usually contain one or two, and do not replace the diversity of microbes lost in modern food production.
The research review found that families where even one person does gardening work have much greater diversity of microbes in their guts.
However, people who don't eat organic vegetables grown in clean soil can be deficient.
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