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Microbes That Keep Us Healthy Starting To Die Off
Dr_Ken writes with a quote from Scientific American:
"The human body has some 10 trillion human cells—but 10 times that number of microbial cells. So what happens when such an important part of our bodies goes missing? With rapid changes in sanitation, medicine and lifestyle in the past century, some of these indigenous species are facing decline, displacement and possibly even extinction. In many of the world's larger ecosystems, scientists can predict what might happen when one of the central species is lost, but in the human microbial environment—which is still largely uncharacterized—most of these rapid changes are not yet understood. 'This is the next frontier and has real significance for human health, public health and medicine,' says Betsy Foxman, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health in Ann Arbor. Meanwhile, each new generation in developed countries comes into the world with fewer of these native populations. 'They're actually missing some component of their microbiota that they've evolved to have,' Foxman says."
am saddened by the death of our microbial overlords (or underlords as the case may be).
I was thinking the same thing.
There may be a downside to all this though, from what I understand of digestion and our immune system, it seems to me that when you lose X amount of microbes then you will end up with more of a different microbe that may breed much faster due to lack of competition.
The logic doesn't follow entirely. Just because something's been there or done a certain way in the past doesn't make it necessary for the future. Clearly you don't want to be born with everything your parents have. That's why we put antibiotics in the eyes of every newborn in developed countries. The antibiotics prevent chlamydial/gonorrheal blindness in newborns. That being said, it's something to think about and evaluate scientifically - so far it's very early to make any decisions about this stuff given the real lack of data.
Unless I feel like I'm at death's door, I do not go to the doctor. I'll bet most of the people who are missing these microbes have been exposed to a lot of antibiotics. This may also explain why staph infections are turning deadly, and I know it's why Western kids have lots of strange allergies.
The Hadza are the last hunter gatherers in the world, probably. They seem to be doing alright. (Not saying I'd give up my lifestyle, but there are lessons to be learned.)
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/12/hadza/finkel-text
Whether or not we "need" them can only be judged retrospectively, and not after a fairly sudden (in evolutionary terms) change in environment before the consequences have worked out - us having evolved to have them would probably indicate that they give some sort of advantage to not having them.
Maybe there is a middle road? Reasonable sanitation (ya know, soap up the groin, armpits and feet when showering and all that) but cut out the obsessive stuff. At work we have little things that you can use to spray your hands with antibacterial solution at the exit from stairwells. People take antibiotics "just in case", and so forth.
Maybe less really is more sometimes. I.e. there probably is such a thing as being too clean. No need to swing to the other extreme.
90% of the wealth is in 2% of the pockets. Bummer to be in the majority.
this is why we need to let our children interact with other people and go out and play in the dirt. I did and let me tell you, I do still get sick but not as much as some of my friends who had lived sheltered lives with there parents who thought that every little cold they got they would need to go to the doctors to be treated for it. we now live in a world with Sissies who can't take life's discomforts like there parents.
Just dismiss any investigation of it as backwards or some form of vapid tree-hugging, don't study it, and ignore any problems until peoples' expected lifespan returns to 35!
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
The presence of neutral microbes offers resource competition against random microbes taking up residence, especially harmful ones.
Since there is competition, new Microbes of any sort, are less likely to flourish unchecked, than if there was no competition.
Think of how many computer users would be using MacOS or Linux KDE, if Windows didn't exist, or if Microsoft were to suddenly drop dead and stop making new versions of Windows that were successful at competing for placement on people's computers.
The loss/extinction of some of these neutral, or even beneficials microbes could be quite bad, if it makes humans more vulnerable to spontaneous intrusion by others and digestive system issues.
The less diversity in the neutral microbes... the more likely that a malicious microbe releases one toxin that happens to kill them all.
Are the microbial cells really something like 1% the weight on average of a human cell?
Yes, they are. See Procaryote vs Eukaryote.
sic transit gloria mundi
Think back to high school, doc. Remember the parts of a human cell?
One of 'em, the mitochondria, is essentially a specially-evovled bacteria used to help your cell produce energy. It's easily less than 1/10th the size of the whole cell. Maybe 1/20th, or even 1/100th, for very big cells.
And not all cells are the same size. You have some cells in your body that stretch for the better part of a yard, and if you're a woman you produce one certain cell every four weeks or so that's almost big enough to be seen with the naked eye.
Parent is correct in pointing out this basic failure to recognize the problem with averages in statistics.
In addition, abortions can also be counted as early deaths.
We already save many that would naturally die which has skewed the average even further. If the technology froze, one would expect the average to go down as the genetic defects live long enough to reproduce and increase the defect rates possibly leading to complications medicine can not fully counter.
Just think about it -- a dominant defective trait allowed to continue leads a large demographic of people (or all humans) who have some sort of defect that requires advanced technology to continue the species... The makings of an interesting science fiction story?
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NOT MY MIDI-CHLORIANS!!
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I hate to play pedant, but that's a poor analogy. Cattle have been bred to mature quickly; meanwhile the never-fully domesticated Elephants of Africa and India rival humans for their long maturation and gestation periods.
/IANA Micro-biologist
Microbes, on the other hand, are easy to breed in quantity once you have established their optimal developmental environment. Once we work out what we have inside and around us and what we need, we could conceivably tailor our anti-biotic intake based on our inherited and environmental differences.
'Intelligently planned' biotic yoghurt supplements may be the next big thing in preventative health care.
Yes, for all of the hopelessly stupid people out there. If you feel like you are sick and you don't have a cold, go to a doctor to find out what it is. If your lymph nodes stay swollen for some reason, go to the doctor. If you have unexplainable pain, go to the doctor. When you get to a certain age, turn and cough. However, if you come down with the sniffles, suck it up and don't run to get Tamiflu and antibiotics shoved up your ass just because.
Christ almighty. I hope they never take the warning labels off small electronics. Otherwise you'll probably end up trying to use your Bagelator in the bathtub.
But the average longevity is only going up because of fewer early adult deaths. Longevity only considers those that reach adulthood.
Basically you are flat out wrong. The maximum expected age hasn't moved much. The rates of death for all younger years has been going down for many centuries.
The 99th percentile may have always lived about the same length of time. The 50th percentile are living much longer now.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Seems that most products advertised today pull on the "santize everything you touch" FUD that's out there. I work at a large technology company, and they recently installed automated hand sanitizers by every external door. I read an article recently that claimed that EMC was having cleaning crews sanitize every doorknob in their campus once a week.
This isn't just a corporate activity, I've got a friend with a 5yr old son in that the son has been conditioned to ask mom for Purel every 5-10 minutes. I also find it funny that kids are being taught to eat a McDonald's burger by holding the wrapper. The funny part is that the people making the burgers aren't wearing gloves...
Reminds me of the old joke: A Harvard and MIT student, both just finished using the urinal and the MIT student walks towards the door. The Harvard student says, "Hey, at Harvard they teach us to wash our hands after using the urinal!" The MIT student fires back, "At MIT they teach us not to pee on our hands!"
The vast majority of bacteria are either harmless or beneficial to their human host. Only a very small number of bacteria are pathogenic, and most of the time your body does a great job keeping those out. Here's a great book for bacteria spotters, amateur and pro, which tells you how to find bacteria without a microscope.
http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=3864
http://www.amazon.com/Field-Guide-Bacteria-Comstock-Book/dp/0801488540
That’s the thing: There is a “too much”. Like with “sanitation“/antibiotics.
You essentially need that massive amount microbes in your digestive system, to digest your food. They are as much a part of you, as your heart or your brain.
If you kill them, you kill yourself!
If you ever had a wrecked digestive system, you know what you are talking about. Not only dose life become really shitty. It even changes your character. And not only as secondary effects. But because your digestive system got just as much neurons as your brain, and the messed up digestion messes with those neurons too.
Just as you got a protective film on your tongue, and on your whole skin.
If you kill them off, you basically lose the firewall and part of your PSU. Good luck withstanding the DDOS and botnet shitstorm and the hurricane outside then...
Sure you can try to recreate protection in form of chemicals and bubble boy bubbles. But what’s the point, if you already got a extremely effective system that’s been in use and improvement since millions, if not billions of years.
Those who do not understand nature are doomed to recreate it. Badly. ^^
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Well lets see... allergies in the western world are on the rise, and people here tend to rely on medicine to solve sicknesses rather than their immune systems.
I recall hearing that the appendix was a safe haven for some good bacteria. After a purge from antibiotics, it replenishes your gut with the good stuff. Complete speculation, but this decline might leave us with more restricted diets and weaker immune systems in a couple generations.
more fun than eating dirt: mud wrestling with members of the opposite sex (or same sex, if that's the way you roll)
...now has scientific backing. Go ahead, pick up that chip that fell on the floor and eat it. When someone gives you a look, just tell them you are maintaining a healthy microbial diversity.
I've lost all my marbles except one & It's fun to test angular & centripetal acceleration in my skull
There was recently a story about how people with a high-fat, high-sugar diet have different microbes in their stomach that allow them to absorb a higher % of calories from those fat/sugar than a more moderate diet. And that it could change as fast as 16 hours - so if you decide to go for yogurt and vegetables one entire day, and then eat a high fat carbohydrate laden meal the next, your body wouldn't absorb nearly as many calaries as it would have if you ate the previous day. Which may hold the key for some weight loss.
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1938023,00.html