What is the nurmi effect?

Answer 1

The Nurmi effect relates to the protective effects of normal gut bacterial flora against disease-causing bacteria (a process called competitive exclusion). Nurmi was a scientist who was looking into ways to reduce Salmonella infection of chickens (as this disease can be passed onto humans who eat the meat). Chicks are normally reared in very clean environments and have no contact with adult birds, and so have little if any opportunity to pick up bacteria from the environment to colonise their guts. Nurmi demonstrated that by giving newborn chicks an oral dose of "good" gut bacteria (extracted from faeces of adult chickens), this protected them against the bad Salmonella bacteria which could cause disease in the chicken or the people who ate it!