Scientists and doctors have been investing more time and money into researching digestion. The last decade and a half have been exciting times for digestive health in the english-speaking medical world. 
Eight percent of the American population have diagnosed digestive diseases, six percent have acute episodes of digestive disease, and forty-three percent have intermittent digestive disorders.
Up until fairly recently we were not aware of the guts immense influence on the mind and our immune system.
We are still learning a lot about bacteria in general, and scientists are classifying bacteria as plants. This is why the term gut flora is going around, which isn’t completely accurate yet it quite descriptive. Similar to plants, different bacteria have different characteristics concerning their nutrition, habitat, and level of toxicity.
The scientifically correct terms for the ecosystems of our gut would be microbiota, or “little life,” and microbiome.
Quick facts about the life inside our gut:
- Our guts microbiome can weigh up to 4.5 pounds and contains about 100 trillion bacteria.
- 1 gram of feces contains more bacteria(or remnants of the bacteria life) than there are people on earth.
- When something is wrong with the microbiome of our gut, other systems will be negatively impacted. Skewed proportions of certain gut bacterias have been detected in people who experience obesity, malnutrition, nervous diseases, depression, and chronic digestive problems.
- Bacteria cracks open indigestible food for us, supplies the gut with energy, manufactures vitamins, breaks down toxins and medications, and trains our immune system to attack violators.
- 99% of all the microorganisms that live on us or in us are found in the gut.
- Our gastrointestinal tract is home to more than 1,000 different bacteria, populations of viruses, yeast, fungi, and other single celled organisms.
- Most of the bacteria lives in the large intestine and rectum
If the human body was the planet, our gut would be the forest were all the wildest creatures dwell
images:
https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-topics/Anatomy/your-digestive-system/Pages/anatomy.aspx
info:
http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/6328/1/Digestive-Diseases-The-Facts.html