从腋下到生殖器，科学家们正在不断深入探究人体内的各种微生物群落，并尝试改变它们的组成结构，我们对自己体内外的微生物的理解也在不断加深。其中，最为大众所熟知的大概就是肠道菌群。“遇事不决，量子力学；机制难寻，肠道菌群”。在过去的几十年里，很少有科学话题能如肠道微生物一般在主流大众媒体上引发巨大关注。这些生活在人类消化道中的细菌、古菌、病毒和真菌群落对我们的健康有着巨大的影响。许多研究表明，肠道微生物群会影响我们消化食物和吸收营养的能力，而肠道微生物群的失衡与2型糖尿病、非酒精性肝病等疾病的发生密切相关。一些研究甚至发现，肠道微生物群还与认知功能和心理健康有关。比如，科学家正在探索自闭症谱系障碍、抑郁症、焦虑症、创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）等是否也与生活在我们体内的微生物有关。这种关系并非单向的，我们对肠道微生物群也有很大的控制权，而要实现这种控制，除了选择调整饮食、补充益生菌，还可以选择运动。提到肠道微生物组，你可能会想到益生菌、酸奶，还有各种宣称添加了活性微生物群落的饮料或食物。而美国北卡罗莱纳农工州立大学（North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University）的临床运动生理学家马克·库克（Marc Cook）发现，运动也会改变我们的肠道菌群。大约15年前，还没有人研究运动肠道微生物之间的可能联系。但当时已有临床观察发现，患有炎症性肠病，特别是溃疡性结肠炎的患者，能通过运动获益。彼时，马克还在美国伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-香槟分校（University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign）攻读博士学位，在关注到这一点后，他决定深入探究其背后的机制。在实验中，马克把小鼠放在它们最爱的滚轮上。结果发现，主动跑步的小鼠会对类似于人类结肠炎的疾病产生有效的抵抗力，而那些不跑步的小鼠则没有。这一初步发现揭示了运动与肠道健康之间可能存在着更深层次的联系。十多年后的今天，我们对运动与肠道微生物组之间联系的认识已经深入了许多。
Exercise Isn’t Just for Your Muscles—It’s Great for Your Gut, Too
Rachel Feltman: For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman.
Over the last couple of decades, few science topics have made a bigger mainstream splash than the microbiome. Our growing understanding of the microbes that live on us, in us and around us has scientists analyzing—and trying to tweak—colonies from our armpits to our genitals. But when most of us hear the word “microbiome” our minds go first to the diverse ecosystems found within our guts.The communities of bacteria, archaea, viruses and fungi that live in our digestive tracts have a huge impact on us. Research shows that our gut microbiomes influence how well we digest our food and absorb nutrients, and an imbalance in the microorganisms of the gut is associated with conditions such as type 2 diabetes and nonalcoholic liver disease. Some research even suggests that our gut microbiomes are tied to cognitive function and mental well-being: scientists are exploring how autism spectrum disorder, depression, anxiety, PTSD and more could be connected to the tiny creatures that live inside us.But this relationship isn’t one-sided: we also have a lot of power over our gut microbiomes—and that extends beyond our food choices.Our guest today is Lydia Denworth, a contributing editor for Scientific American. She writes SciAm’s Science of Health column. In the magazine’s June 2025 issue she reported on the surprising link between gut microbes and exercise. She’s here today to tell us more.Thanks so much for coming on to chat with us today.Lydia Denworth: It’s good to be here.Feltman: So you recently wrote in your column about the microbiome, which, of course, our listeners have heard a lot about, but I think people tend to think about their microbiome and think about yogurts and probiotics. But you wrote about the connection to exercise. How did you first come across that connection?Denworth: I was at a science journalist conference, and I heard Marc Cook talk—he’s one of the people I interviewed for that column—and he’s a researcher at North Carolina [Agricultural and Technical] State University, and he studies exercise in the microbiome, and it was exactly what you just said that got him interested.I mean, everybody thinks about diet, probiotics, things like that. And back about 15 years ago he was at the University of Illinois [Urbana-Champaign] getting his Ph.D., and the idea that there might be a link between exercise and microbes in your gut was really just not a thing that anybody was thinking about. But he did know that people with inflammatory bowel disease, specifically ulcerative colitis, benefited from exercise. So he thought, “Well, let me investigate, maybe, what that’s about.”So he stuck mice on wheels—you know, mice like to run on wheels—and he found that the mice that voluntarily exercised were protected against a mouse version of colitis and the ones that did not run were not. And so it kinda started there, with this idea that, “Oh, there’s more to look at.”Feltman: So now, you know, more than a decade later, what do we know about the connection between exercise and the gut microbiome?Denworth: We know a couple of things. So one thing is: in people who are regular exercisers or who are elite athletes...[full transcript]
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