LESS HUMAN THAN WHAT WE THOUGHT

LESS HUMAN THAN WHAT WE THOUGHT

However much we wash ourselves with soap, shampoo and various products, our skin remains covered with germs, virus and fungi. Beginning from the mouth and going south we notice armies of micro-organisms the concentration of which increases as we go down. Of all the cells in our body, 43% are human and the rest are non-human. Surprisingly, the non-human part is indispensable for the human part to live and stay in good health and the interaction between the human and microbial cells goes all the way down to our DNA. The microbial world in our intestine is called microbiome and is necessary for food to be digested, for the regulation of the immune system and for the production of vitamins. Microbiome alterations are seen in diseases such as colitis, Parkinson’s disease, forms of cancer, depression and even autism. The microbiome is even involved in obesity. Transplanting the microbiome of obese people into non-obese animals the latter become obese and vice versa transplanting from non-obese people to obese animals. Studies are underway to examine how we can modify people’s microbiome as a treatment for various illnesses. Toilets are being studied that will have instruments to examine live the microbial composition of what we are about to abandon so that we know in time what corrections to make to avoid getting ill. Commercial arrangements might even allow us to get hold of someone’s microbiome which serves us better than our own.

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