Thanks to our guts for being a safe home to all these bacteria, virus, parasites and other microorganisms who are serving us 24/7/365. As a gastroenterologist, I am elated about the fact that our gut, or gastrointestinal tract, will be one of the main areas of application of this new knowledge to improve our health. This will be a great way to treat, in a natural way, using our bacteria and virus friends whom we have vilified as only enemies in the past. As we peek into the science of this amazing inter-dependence, this is also a wonderful opportunity for us to use this knowledge in understanding and later preventing and curing many diseases. Our knowledge is rapidly evolving and the more we know, the more we are awed with the intricacies of our mutual relationship. Next time, you see or imagine of a microorganism, give it a loving hug, and try not to eliminate it from the earth with toxic sprays and fumes. We depend on one as much we depend on the other. We have been there for each other in good days and bad days. Bacteria, viruses, parasites and all other living things, along with humans have grown and evolved together. This is a perfect happy couple relationship we need each other for our health and well being. This is also well proven that some of them are predominant in certain species and are also unique to certain mammalians. In Sickness and In Health……Ĭonversely, these bacteria, and other living organisms, get their shelter and nutrition in our body and we supply many of their nutrition needs. The fact that one can reverse this fatal disease by instilling stool from healthy people is just more living evidence that proper types of bacteria can save us. Concern of bacterial imbalance induced by antibiotics is well borne out by development of Clostridium difficile colitis which kills quite a few people every year in our country and worldwide. Lack of proper bacterial population and balance has been attributed to Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), immune dysfunction, leaky gut, development of Colitis, Crohn’s disease, mental status change and even asthma. Its importance is growing as our understanding keeps on increasing in this field. Who knows what else they are doing for us?Ī concept well emphasized in both medical and lay literatures is proper balance of bacteria in terms of their total number and population diversity combined with other microbiological organisms. With this knowledge still in the infancy stages of exploration, daily we find out more and more how we coexist with bacteria and viruses. They synthesize Vitamin B and Vitamin K for our body. In addition, some of these bacteria convert other indigestible products to human consumable sugars. Without their help we are not capable of producing it by ourselves. We are so dependent on each other that some Short Chain Fatty Acids, which can generate up to ten to fifteen percent of our energy, is given to us by these bacteria by working on certain carbohydrates. These alien organisms including viruses, parasites and humans, have evolved together for eons and are mutually beneficial to each other. That leaves us with representing only 1% of our own genome and 99% alien genomes in our body a body we call ours! Our stool, or fecal material that we extrude with varying frequency depending on the individual habits, is estimated to be 40-50% bacterial mass! It is estimated that over 500 types of bacteria are living in our gut and they are pulling on as much of our weight as much we are pulling on theirs. Even more than bacteria, viruses exceed that amount by 10 times more. As a patient centric gastroenterologist, naturally, I am intensely interested as to how we interact with these life forms and what role they play in the health and diseases of humans, especially how it relates to intestinal diseases.īacteria living in our gastrointestinal tract exceed 10 times the amount of our own human cells. Nowhere in the body it is more important than our gastrointestinal tract. We are not only surrounded by bacteria and viruses, but they also live within us we are a part of each other. One milliliter (cc) of fresh water may contain more than a million bacteria. The amount of bacteria in the world is estimated to be more than all the animals, and plants, combined. It’s hard to believe that we are living among a sea of bacteria and probably many more kinds of viruses.
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