All disease starts in the gut', remarked Hippocrates more than twenty centuriesago. Perhaps by no means of coincidence, there is the Chinese idiom ' ',which literally means the acquisition of illnesses through the mouth. We are all mindfulof the embryological development of the gut, with the origin from the foregut of thepharynx, oesophagus, stomach, and proximal duodenum; from the midgut, distalhalf of duodenum, jejunum, ileum, caecum, appendix, ascending colon, the righttwo-thirds of the transverse colon; and from the hindgut, the left one-third of thetransverse colon, descending colon, sigmoid colon, and the rectum. High schoolbiology students and medical undergraduates should be well versed with the structureof the gut as a tube that extends from the oral cavity through all these passages to theanal sphincter and its function as a conduit for transport, within which the processesof digestion, absorption, and elimination take place. Even at this level of understanding,the importance of gut health cannot be more obvious.
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