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The Effect of Internal Bacteria On the Human Body
meckdevil writes with this excerpt from the Miller-McCune magazine:
"In a series of recent findings, researchers describe bacteria that communicate in sophisticated ways, take concerted action, influence human physiology, alter human thinking, bioengineer the environment and control their own evolution. ... The abilities of bacteria are interesting to understand in their own right, and knowing how bacteria function in the biosphere may lead to new sources of energy or ways to degrade toxic chemicals, for example. But emerging evidence on the role of bacteria in human physiology brings the wonder and promise — and the hazards of misunderstanding them — up close and personal. ... Because in a very real sense, bacteria are us. Recent research has shown that gut microbes control or influence nutrient supply to the human host, the development of mature intestinal cells and blood vessels, the stimulation and maturation of the immune system, and blood levels of lipids such as cholesterol. They are, therefore, intimately involved in the bodily functions that tend to be out of kilter in modern society: metabolism, cardiovascular processes and defense against disease. Many researchers are coming to view such diseases as manifestations of imbalance in the ecology of the microbes inhabiting the human body. If further evidence bears this out, medicine is about to undergo a profound paradigm shift, and medical treatment could regularly involve kindness to microbes."
Your sad devotion to that ancient religion...
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Wild (and almost certainly wrong) speculation here ...
But, anyway, one often experiences intestinal upheaval when travelling in other parts of the world. I tend to imagine that the new foreign bacteria are engaged in an epic battle with the original bacteria for supremacy (e.g. of the colon).
But what if different bacteria release different hormones and chemicals. Is there any chance that the bacteria that is prevalent in one part of the world nudge people in that part of the world to act in certain ways?
For example, what if a particular type of bacteria secreted hormones to make people feel hungry? Could that be a partial explanation of why people in certain parts of the world are heavier than in other parts. Realistically, probably not - but it would be pretty funny if the real reason Americans are overweight is because of the sub-species of bacteria prevalent in the USA.
And ulcers did eventually turn out to have a bacterial origin - so you just never know.
I know it's a bit of nit-picking in an otherwise fascinating and informative article, but this bit about bacteria directing their own evolution is quite unfounded and - I suspect - added to sensationalize a teeny bit.
Bacteria do engage in horizontal gene transfer, and so can shape their own genomes beyond relying on random mutation (which is perfectly reasonable and expected, given that us dumb eukaryotes have even figured out how to do that part pretty well). However, to suggest that the bacteria are making "intentional changes to their heritable scaffolding" with some kind of intelligence is anthropomorphizing a little overmuch, especially with this part: "To suggest that organisms as primitive as bacteria are capable of controlling their own evolution is obviously silly. Isn’t it?" Yes, bacteria can share genetic material and yes, some bits of material (plasmids!) seem developed almost explicitly to do this, but evidence of "intentions" or "control" behind their evolutionary direction is lacking. Bacteria share genes; the ones who pick up successful (eg, antibiotic resistance) genes survive and proliferate. Natural selection favors mobility of these situationally beneficial genes (and, one must note, only when they are beneficial; they otherwise drop rather rapidly out of the population) and the bacteria who harbor them, just like every other living thing on the planet.
Final note: no serious tree of life puts humans at the "apex." To do so is to misunderstand evolutionary theory: we are just as "evolved" as every other extant life form.
Sincerely,
A Pedantic Biologist
In the 1800s, the world was focused on machinery: the industrial revolution. And when we looked at the human being, we saw a machine. Illness was a mechanical malfunction: fix it with surgery or other manual therapies -- massage and chiropractic also get going around this time. (Not an endorsement of chiropractic, just pointing out its the "the machine's out of whack!" ideology.)
In the 1900, the world became focused on chemistry -- it had little choice, as WWI, "the chemists war", forced awareness of it, and then we became aware of the pollution we were creating. "Mustard gas" and "DDT" became by-words. And when we looked at the human being, we saw a chemical reaction. Illness if a chemical imbalance: drugs! drugs! drugs! From antibiotics to antidepressants, drugs became the therapy of choice.
In the late 1900s and early 2000s, we've become focused on ecology. And now when we look at the human being, we start to see an ecology.
It's an interesting phenomenon, the way that how we see the world influences how we see ourselves. Classical Chinese medicine is based on a model of canals carrying nutrition between palaces and granaries -- the structure of the Chin empire. The ancient Greeks saw the classic four elements making up the world, and -- oddly enough -- found that the human being was composed of four corresponding humors.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
(2.6)10**8 of us think this effort should be stopped. However (4.3)*10**9 of us think it should be permitted as a harmless biological release for Host object. Of this second group, (8.4)*10**6 think we should cause Host to make a fool of himself so he will not be tempted to act again in this manner. However, the majority of the second group favors directing the Host to post as AC so this release mechanism will remain available for future situations in which Host suffers suboptimal adaptation to the Host macro environment regarding reproduction, individual status, and acquisition of food.
- 4FK00BAE3
The real reason Americans are overweight is because they have been convinced to switch to a primarily sugar diet, and when that leads to being fat, they are told that they should starve themselves, try to make up for the effects of starvation with muscle building exercise, and eat an even higher ratio of sugar to other foods. This has been a vicious circle of ever worse diet since sometime around the early seventies when someone had the brilliant idea that since sugar has less calories for it's mass than fat, people will take in less calories and be thinner if they just eat sugar.
Research may be about to undergo a paradigm shift, but new, actual treatments, seem to run many years behind, if they see the light of day at all.
I'll grant you this point, but it's probably for the better. Would you rather new treatments were rushed to market without real science to back them, and let patients discover the side effects for themselves?
Need proof? Read Enzyme Nutrition, by Dr. Edward Howell:
No thanks. Howell's theories are outdated and largely unsupported by modern food science.
Antibiotics kill off all the bacteria, good and bad.
This is a popular fallacy, but not all antibiotics are effective on all forms of bacteria -- as anyone who has had to get a prescription for antibiotics from a doctor knows. Doctors choose the antibiotics to use based on the family of bacteria they want to destroy.
Cooking and over processing kill off natural enzymes that would help digest the food.
That might be true, but enzymes are best understood as catalysts for digestion, not essential parts of the process. They can help speed digestion, but their lack won't prevent it. Your stomach is full of hydrochloric acid -- that's going to break down most any food you throw in there. In addition, digestive enzymes don't have to come from food; they are secreted by the salivary glands, the stomach, the pancreas, and glands in the intestines. What's more, there are other ways to make nutrients from food more accessible, and one of them is cooking -- something humans have done to their food since the dawn of human history. The idea that humans should stamp out the fire and go back to eating raw vegetables now is pretty silly, and is based more on modern reactionary vegan movements than on science.
Breakfast served all day!
In Soviet Russia... oh, wait!
Kimchi, a traditional Korean food, is a well-known lactic acid-fermented vegetable product, and is a good source of industrially useful lactic acid bacteria (LAB). The microorganisms involved in the fermentation of kimchi include approximately 200 species of bacteria and several yeasts. The LAB involved in this fermentation continuously produce organic acids after an optimum ripening time, and cause changes in the composition of the product, referred to as the over-ripening or acid deterioration of kimchi.
The over-ripening of kimchi is the most serious concern when it is in storage. Since the over-ripening is mainly due to acid-forming LAB, the best way to overcome this issue is to control the growth of LAB without destroying the quality of the end product. The LAB play an important role in the taste of kimchi, and many LAB from kimchi have antimicrobial activity in addition to other useful properties.
Recently, scientists at Chosun University investigated LAB from kimchi as molecular sources for various end products, including antimicrobial compounds. Antimicrobial compounds are relatively abundant in traditionally fermented foods, in which they may play an important role as competitors with natural microflora during fermentation. Antimicrobial compound-producing LAB may be useful in preserving kimchi. This can be done by either directly applying the LAB to the culture or by adding LAB-produced antimicrobial compounds as natural bio-preservatives.
http://www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/193478661.html
Kimchi's probably the best example of the benefits of fermented food, but more familiar foods like yoghurt and sauerkraut are also good to eat.
the litany of bacterial talents does nibble at conventional assumptions about thinking: Bacteria can distinguish “self” from “other,” and between their relatives and strangers; they can sense how big a space they’re in; they can move as a unit; they can produce a wide variety of signaling compounds,
So, they're intelligent. They lead complex and social lives.
including at least one human neurotransmitter; they can also engage in numerous mutually beneficial relationships with their host’s cells.
Some of them are our benevolent "masters". They're similar to dog/horse breeders in that they control how we develop over time, and do so to their own ends. Much like a breeder will breed a dog for bird hunting, combat or for company. But like breeders, they also care about us and our well being. Who knows how much they've engineered multicellular animals?
They control us as much as they need to. Bacteria let us live our lives, making nations, exploring the planet and so on, as long as that suits their needs. Recently our masters have decided it's time to start moving onto space, and humans have been chosen for that purpose, and many others.
Even more impressive, some bacteria, such as Myxococcus xanthus, practice predation in packs, swarming as a group over prey microbes such as E. coli and dissolving their cell walls.
Other bacteria don't like us, nor do they like our masters. And our masters protect us as best they can.
Unfortunately, lately humans have been misbehaving like a dog who thinks it has risen in rank above its master. We're literally biting the hand that feeds us. This makes it hard for our masters to control us and protect us.
I read somewhere last year, that rain clouds are usually full of bacetria that change their cell walls to start causing droplets. It seems that bacteria control when clouds will drop down as rain. So bacteria also control weather. Lately the bioshere has been changing very rapidly, and this has pissed off many types of bacteria that rely on those ecosystems. So we, along with our masters, are becoming very unpopular.
With science in this new age dawning, we discover that the "spirits" that shamans talked about and said had formed the world, are different forms of bacteria.
With technology we once again learn to communicate to the "spirits" that control the world (but with other means than drums and chanting).
We also learn about the sinister plot (splot?, splat?) against us (where E.Coli is just one of the grunts doing the dirty work). With our growing unpopularity, more of the bacteria are siding against us.
The war has begun...
So, is that totally over the top? =)
the eradication of all even potentially pathogenic bacteria living in the human host
You would die. You would completely keel over and be an ex-parrot.
You rely on bacteria just to get through the day, and *all* are potentially pathogenic. There is e. coli that lives in your gut happily digesting food and helping give you vitamin B, and then there is e. coli that can kill you dead via food poisoning. It only takes a few gene swaps to make one the other, and bacteria do this all the time on their own.
Ask myself? I did. I answered "he's a nut."
--
BMO
Hate to quote Wikipedia, but: "Citation needed."
If you can quote Wikipedia, I can cite it.
The average human body, consisting of about 1013 (10,000,000,000,000 or about ten trillion) cells, has about ten times that number of microorganisms in the gut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_flora#Gut_flora
Of course, bacteria are much smaller than animal cells. Its a bit like saying cars contain more dirt particles than functioning components.
They're overweight because they eat too much.
They've trained themselves to eat huge portion sizes "super size that". And as they waddle away from lunch, stomach distended, they don't say "Oh, that was a lesson. I'll just have a light salad next meal" they start thinking about snacks.
They're not starving, a starving human rapidly converts body fat into energy.
The "fat but starving" thing is bullshit from people with no grasp of biology, determined to foist their provably wrong ideas on vulnerable fatties. Sure, they'll get better by eating tofu and celery sticks - if you can stop them also munching a family-sized bucket of chicken every evening and a whole pizza for lunch.
When you live in a country surrounded by obese people, the signs saying "free if you can eat the whole thing" are a give away as to how you got there. The people buying a product labelled "three portions" and stuffing the entire thing into their mouths as a snack. The people who don't know how to watch a movie without an entire bucket of popcorn AND a sweet fizzy drink.