Since we have
been doing a lot of recent work with the Human Microbiome, I searched New York
Times and found an article called, “Say Hello to the 100 Trillion Bacteria That
Make up Your Microbiome.” It was a very dense article with a ton of
information.
As you know, the
human body is home to, well, 100 trillion microorganisms, that live on your
skin, tongue, in your intestines, etc… and no two people are alike. When there
is a disorder in your body (or “wrong” kind of microbes) can expose the body to
obesity, viruses, and a range of diseases. Microbes in our system also play a
role in maintaining our immune system, and are able to identify good organisms
from the bad. Being able to study the different types of organisms in our body
can help scientists come up with a cure for most diseases; but that day is
still to come.
The author of this
article, Michael Pollan, wrote about his own experiences with the human Microbiome,
and what he has learned. Did you know that microbial communities of couples
sharing a home are similar? Or that having a dog increases the chance of
blending everyone’s skin communities within a given household? He also went
over how a baby’s gut community is highly colonized, versus being completely
sterile in utero. But a baby’s gut if
far different from an adults; they lack an enzyme to digest carbohydrates in
breast milk. It turns out that breast milk feeds a bacteria, Bifidobactrium infantis, which keeps the
baby healthy, and nurturing the integrity of the baby’s intestines.
This is about half the information in this article. Like I
said, it is very dense, and contains A TON of information. The main idea of the
story is basically all about microbes that live among our bodies, ranging from
adults and infants, and what those microbes do. I’ve learned quite a bit about
the human Microbiome, but this contains so much information that I haven’t heard
of before.
Since there was so much information, I will probably
continue next week’s blog, with this article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/magazine/say-hello-to-the-100-trillion-bacteria-that-make-up-your-microbiome.html?pagewanted=all&action=click&module=Search®ion=searchResults%230&version=&url=http%3A%2F%2Fquery.nytimes.com%2Fsearch%2Fsitesearch%2F%3Faction%3Dclick%26region%3DMasthead%26pgtype%3DHomepage%26module%3DSearchSubmit%26contentCollection%3DHomepage%26t%3Dqry116%23%2Fmicrobiome%2F
Articles with really heavy information are difficult to take on so I give your kudos for doing this! You did a really good job of condensing and pulling out the interesting parts of the article. A lot of the points you made are really interesting facts about the human microbiome! Its interesting that the author brought in some of his own experience into the article; I haven't seen that in any of the articles I've selected!
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ReplyDeleteHi, I am a PhD student in Dr. Northup's lab. I have read some similar articles on the study of bacteria residing on and inside individuals and how the bacterial communities associated with humans may be different in individuals for reasons such as obesity. It seems that we still have limited knowledge about the human microbiota. There will probably be many interesting studies about this topic in the next 10 years.
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