Bacterial Balance Medicine...and the Human Microbiome Project


I was just thinking the other day about how we like to think of ourselves as humans, but we are infact mere living structures for colonies of microbes ;). Apartment complexes with central heating, and food delivery.

InfoGraphic

OK, there is some basic human structure dependent on DNA passed along from our ancestors, but there is also (by weight) an astonishing percentage of cell sized travelers on our skin, in our bellies, etc...I've read it can be 10% of body weight, and that in terms of cell numbers, there are actually 10x more bacteria than human cells. That means 90% of the cells you are walking around with all the time are not coding proteins from your DNA, but rather microbial proteins.

It is not easy to count all these organisms I imagine, so who knows how much is enough/too little/too much. At the same time, if for one reason or another one of the bacterial groups gains an upperhand, then we end up with systemic problems...

This seems to happen following a course of antibiotics, or other medications, or in persons with some immune system deficiency. I've heard gut flora populations can be harmed following food poisoning, or bouts of diarrhea.

Yeast, candida, overgrowth due to damaged flora populations is a common problem.

Maybe one day there will be a form of medicine that seeks to harmonize the lifecycles of these single celled hitchhikers...I suppose in some form this exists in the science of nutrition...infection perhaps? any others? ...and low and behold, my Google Fu reveals the Human Microbiome Project....

Some links that seem relevant:
Powerpoint from MIT on the Microbiome

NIH site for the Human Microbiome Project

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Batch upload videos to Youtube from Synology DS

Image
Like many people, I thought it would be great to backup my videos to my Synology DS , and then have the DS upload them to youtube. Infact, the documentation claims Photostation 6 can do this from withing the DSM. Sadly it turns out that you can only send them one at a time to Youtube from Photostation. My workaround has been: Install Cloud Sync package on Synology. Set up my GDrive account in CloudSync to sync in one direction (upload from Synology only). On the DS, copy a batch of movies from their usual directory to the new sync directory for GDrive. Sit back and wait, as synology moves all those files to GDrive. The next day, go to Youtube, click upload.  Select, 'upload from Photos'. Here I find all the movies that synology moved to gdrive. Youtube still has to process them, but the batch upload is done, and the processing doesn't take too long. When processing is done, I remove the movies from the sync directory on DS, which seems to automatically d
Read more

On the homogenisation of time

Three stages of before during and after, are naturally occurring phenomenon. We live in the entropic one way street that is called the passing of time. Our universe, galaxy, solar system, and planet all rotate through time, so it's normal for humans to have evolved biological underpinnings that are dependent on these three stages. It can be felt in the subconscious urges that we experience eventually as hunger, or desire... The before. The ecstacy of the now, during. And the denouement, the after. Consciously accessed experiences, manifest as future memory, working memory and attention, and short and long-term memory. These distinctions reflect the rising and falling of cycles, their repetitive nature, the foundation of life itself, life as we know it, complete with the cycle of life and death, growth, maturation, renewal. The psychological impacts of these three stages have been studied and exploited to generate compulsive behaviours, consumerist behaviours, by stimulating and pro
Read more

Air China Rant

I was going to send this to AirChina, but that seems pointless now. A quick search of the web brings up hundreds (probably more like thousands) of complaints about service quality. I'll just add mine here. To AirChina, I am composing this to you onboard flight CA861 to Geneva, direct from Beijing. I am using a laptop computer, having just been informed by the flight attendant that cell phones (even in flight mode) cannot be used at any time during the flight. I am not sure if I am being singled out for some reason, as I have seen a number of passangers reading text on their cell phone screens throughout the flight. I listened to music during the flight to Beijing, and never had any complaints from the service staff. The cabin staff chief assures me that I can use an ipad, a tablet computer, or a laptop… just not a cell phone (even in flight mode, which means all radios turned off). This is the first time that I have encountered this policy on any airline. It's like a ru
Read more