Your early life shapes the mix of good and bad viruses in your gut

Having older siblings may influence the mixture of viruses in babies’ guts, known as the gut virome.

While there has been a wealth of research on how gut bacteria influence our health, we know much less about the importance of viruses in the gut, which can have good and bad effects.

At birth, the guts of most babies are devoid of viruses, but in the first few years of life, viruses that infect gut cells …