A comic about eating. Since you are what you eat. Or at least your gut is.
Content warning
None
The comic
*A community of microorganisms, such as bacteria, viruses and fungi.
This comic was originally written in English and then translated into German, French, Luxembourgish and Portuguese. It was written without the help of AI.
The paper
Wilson, A. S., Koller, K. R., Ramaboli, M. C., Nesengani, L. T., Ocvirk, S., Chen, C., … & O’Keefe, S. J. (2020). Diet and the human gut microbiome: an international review. Digestive Diseases and Sciences, 65(3), 723-740. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10620-020-06112-w
Connection between comic and paper
The comic shows how our diet shapes our gastrointestinal microbiome. Research has shown that a balanced diet is key to staying healthy. Too much of just one type of nutrients is detrimental to the diversity of bacteria and funghi in our gut. And the more different microbes live there, the better. The “good ones” can keep check of the “bad ones” that often make us sick. Especially fibre-rich food (meaning fruits and vegetables) keep our gastrointestinal tract healthy as not all microbes can make use of them. Just to make it clear: It’s not unhealthy to eat pizza. It’s just not that healthy if you eat it every day. Research has shown that a fibre-rich diet can reduce the risk of several types of cancer as well as diabetes. If you’re interested to dive deeper into the diseases that are linked to what we (don’t) eat and how all this is connected, you can read the review by Wilson and colleagues from 2020.
The project
“A gut feeling” is a science comic from the LUX:plorations series. Each volume is a compilation of short stories about science and research in Luxembourg. The comics are produced in collaboration between young scientists and local comic artists. The science comics are available for free and in five different languages (English, French, German, Luxembourgish and Portuguese). You can read and download all four editions via sciencecomics.uni.lu.
LUX:plorations is published under CC BY-ND 4.0. This means that you are free to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format as long as you give appropriate credit and don’t modify the artwork. LUX:plorations is supported by the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR), the André Losch Fondation, the Doctoral School in Science and Engineering (DSSE), the Doctoral School in Humanities and Social Sciences (DSHSS) and the Faculty of Science, Technology and Medicine (FSTM) of the University of Luxembourg.
The authors
The comic “A gut feeling” was written by Catherine Delbrouck, Lynn Bonetti and Catherine Sedrani, three doctoral graduates from the University of Luxembourg. The story was drawn by Antoine (Tunn) Grimée, a luxembourgish comic artist. The group was supervised by Serge Haan and Veronika Mischitz. Academic Supervisor: Kacy Greenhalgh.
