13 May 2023

David Good: the remarkable gut life of the Yanomami people

From Saturday Morning, 10:06 am on 13 May 2023

The Yanomami people of the Amazon rainforest are one of the last Indigenous groups living as hunter-gatherers and small-scale farmers. They also have the most diverse gut microbiome of any community studied in the world.

David Good is half Yanomami but has spent most of his life in the United States. A life-changing reunion with his mother led him to study how his people's unusual microbiomes might hold the secret to better health by fighting inflammation. 

Good is the author of The Way Around: Finding My Mother and Myself Among the Yanomami and Executive Director of the Yanomami Foundation.

David Good and his mother

David Good and his mother Photo: David Good