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PARIS, KOMPAS.com - Guts formerly only seen as food storage warehouses and trash the rest of the digestion of food. However, a new concept mentioned, the intestine is an important organ in the body's immune system because there are billions of microbes in the gut that is important for health.

Bacteria or intestinal flora there are about 100-400 species. Simply put, these bacteria are classified as good bacteria and bad bacteria. Type of bacteria that live in human intestines apparently vary, depending on the culture because the food is also different.

French scientists from the recent identification of genes found in microbes that have been rotting seaweed. When they find out the type of microbial genes, it is known that the genes of bacteria called Bacteroides plebeius does not just exist on other marine products, but also live in the intestines of Japanese.

"This type of microbes in the gut is influenced in what we asup nutrition, and energy that we can be of nutrients is also affected by the bacteria in the gut," said Miriam Czjzek, researchers from the French National Center for Scientific Research.

Experts suspect that intestinal bacteria on the Japanese people were probably derived from seaweed gene, considering that Japan is a nation of seafood lovers. Microbes known Bacteroides plebeius positive impact on the colonies of bacteria in the gut because they can nourish good bacteria and digest seaweed.

To prove whether this gene is also present in the microflora of people outside of Japan, Czjzek and his team examine previous studies about the intestinal Japanese and North American. It turned out that this gene is not found in people of North America, but this gene was found in 5 of the 13 were Japanese.