Abstract
The gut immune function has developed with the presence of intraluminal bacterial flora which leads to the outside world, accompanied by the growth of mucosal barrier to protect these bacteria from invasion. In contrast, the gut is the most vulnerable organ to any types of insult, hence its nickname the “canary of the body”, and excessive inflammatory responses evoked by a variety of insults could, in turn, have deleterious effects on this barrier structure and function. Together with the abnormal overgrowth of bacterial flora, these changes could make critically ill patients even worse. A recent study indicates that gut-associated lymphoid tissue (GALT) tightly presented around the gut plays a consequential role in the immune system of the living body. In this review, we discuss the implications of the gut immune function in the critically ill.
