MANY PEOPLE FEAR VIRUSES AND GERMS, BUT THEY ARE US
When we break down the word microbiome, we see that “micro” means “small or minute” and “-biome” means “a major ecological community type (such as tropical rainforest, grassland, or desert)” Just how a tropical rain forest is made up of thousands of different organisms working in harmony with each other to benefit the whole environment, your own human cells form an ecological community with different bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites to benefit the human body.
On your skin and in your body live trillions of different bacteria, fungi, parasites and viruses. Before you go and run for the nearest hand sanitizer or antibiotic, realize that these “germs” coexist with us in a healthy symbiotic relationship.
Half of the cells that are found in and on you are not “your” cells at all, but are in fact thousands of different microorganism species.
Trillions of symbiotic microbial organisms live in and on the surface of the human body. They can be found in and on nearly every part of the body, including the gut, brain, ear, skin, nose, the oral, gastrointestinal, respiratory, urinary and vaginal tracts and the bloodstream. Their genes are now thought to contribute more to human survival than the genes of the human. Such genes, the human microbiome, are, for example, pivotal to the process of aging, digestion, the immune system, the modulation of the central nervous system, and a person’s mood and cognitive ability. This makes the human microbiome an essential organ in the human body. Without it the human body cannot function.
Our microbial community, known as the human microbiota, is made up of bacteria, yeasts and other Eukarya, archaea (primitive single-cell organisms), fungi, protozoa and non-living viruses (bacteriophages). Bacteria comprise the vast bulk of the microorganisms that inhabit our bodies. These are the most studied microbes so far. More than 10,00 bacterial species are estimated to live in the body. According to researchers from the Human Microbiome Project the ratio of bacterial protein-coding genes to human genes is 360:1.(1) The vast majority of the bacteria dwell in the gut. These bacteria play a critical role in the breakdown and absorption of nutrients, help break down starches, sugars and proteins that humans cannot otherwise digest and synthesise essential amino acids and vitamins. They also play a part in fat storage and the production of anti-inflammatory factors.
The human microbiome, however, is a dynamic system that alters over the course of a person’s life. Some of the most dramatic changes occur during a person’s infancy and early childhood. Environmental factors and lifestyle habits, such how often a person washes, what they eat, type of clothing they wear, how much time they spend outside, who they interact with and where they live also determine the composition of person’s microbiome. Antibiotics consumption also affects the microbiome.
New scientific research is now labeling the microbiome as a supporting organ of your body. The research is showing how the microbiome supports and promotes a lot of our human functions such as digestion and immunity.
What is most fascinating about the microbiome is that the microorganisms that make up the microbiome, or microbiota, are completely unique for each person. Your microbiome is different than my microbiome, similar to how your fingerprint is unique to you alone.
The external microbiome is first initiated during our delivery as we travel through the birth canal and the internal microbiome is first established through the drinking of our mother’s breast milk. This first exposure is completely dependant on the microbiota found in your mother.
As we develop, so does our microbiome develop through different positive or negative environmental, dietary, and stress responses. The microbiome consists of both potentially harmful microorganisms and helpful microorganisms. A higher population of the “bad” can lead to negative effects of sickness and susceptibility to disease processes.
In a healthy or balanced microbiome, a symbiotic relationship occurs between all the “good” and “bad” microbiota and health can be maintained. The scale can be tipped in the negative through poor diet choices, compromised immunity, stress, antibiotic overuse and other over-sterilization procedures. Ways to promote a healthy microbiome is to eat and consume probiotic and prebiotic rich foods, beneficial stress coping mechanisms, and decreasing the use of general antimicrobial products to name a few.
The details surrounding the microbiome is new, but the overall conversation of “nurture/nature” “environment/heredity” or “soil/seed” when it comes to health and disease is not. Nurturing the soil of the environment might be a newly accepted concept by the mainstream medical community, but it is nothing new.
Before answering what a Prebiotic is, it would actually be better to define a Probiotic first. A probiotic is a microorganism, usually either a bacteria or yeast, that is beneficial for the body and its microbiome. These “good” microorganisms help maintain or improve the other "good" microorganisms in the body.
The greater ratio of “good” to “bad” bacterium help keep the proper balance of the microbiome. This healthy balance comes down to real estate. If the “good” bacteria are in higher numbers, they will take up more space on the skin and in the digestive tract, thus preventing the “bad” bacteria from overpopulating.
For example: Let’s say you take an antibiotic one day when you feel ill. Antibiotics are designed to kill any and all bacteria they come across by disrupting their cell wall and DNA structure. As of yet, there is no such thing as a ‘probiotic sparing antibiotic”.
So as the antibiotic passing through your digestive tract, a large percentage of the bacteria, both the “good” and the “bad” get wiped out. This now creates a two-pronged problem. The majority of the more aggressive “bad” bacteria have started to create an immunity to antibiotics. They have learned through their fast reproduction rates, to strengthen their cell walls so the antibiotics can’t penetrate them.
As the antibiotic passes through the digestive system killing off their “bacterial real estate competition”, they survive unscathed. They now have more space to repopulate and spread their domain. This throws off the normal balance and can create not just illness, but disease. A majority of illnesses we take antibiotics for are actually viral and nature. Antibiotics don’t effect viruses at all.
So what is a Prebiotic? Prebiotics are the nutrients for the bacterium of the microbiome. Prebiotics are usually high in fiber and act as food for the human microflora. Foods that are high in prebiotics include oats, barley, onions, garlic, and asparagus. Prebiotics help improve the balance of the microbiome by keeping the “good” bacteria fed, alive, and healthy
In addition to the abundance of bacteria, the human microbiota contains a large variety of viruses, including plant derived viruses, eukaryotic viruses and giant viruses. Bacteriophages, or phage for short, are some of the most prevalent viruses. They are a type virus that infects bacteria. Helping to shuttle genes from one bacterium to another, bacteriophages are instrumental to the genetic modification of bacteria, a process that can in turn modify humans. Overall, viruses play an important role in the dynamics of the ecosystem of the microbial community, helping, for example, to enhance microbial resilience to disturbances, immune evasion, maintenance of physiological processes. In addition, they are important to the promotion and prevention of pathogen colonisation.
Viruses are the most abundant obligate intracellular entities in our body. Until recently, they were only considered to be pathogens that caused a broad array of pathologies, ranging from mild disease to deaths in the most severe cases. However, recent advances in unbiased mass sequencing techniques as well as increasing epidemiological evidence have indicated that the human body is home to diverse viral species under non-pathological conditions. Despite these studies, the description of the presumably healthy viral flora, i.e. the normal human virome, is still in its infancy
Some microorganisms though do have a scavenger mentality and can overpopulate in certain environments. It is only when our body’s environment encourages these scavenger germs to overpopulate that a disease process can set in.
Oncogenic retroviruses (or oncoretroviruses) are cancer-causing viruses.
In humans, two retroviruses, called HTLV and XMRV, are the main ones.
Retroviruses are viruses whose genome is made up of RNA. These viruses are unique in possessing an enzyme that enables synthesis from this RNA of a DNA molecule capable of integrating into the DNA of a host cell. The retrovirus then utilizes the cell machinery to replicate.
These viruses enter the human body and can hide in body tissue undetected sometimes never causing problems just lying dormant until something sets them off.
HIV is one of the best-known retroviruses.
How was this spread around the world affecting millions of people and still is, the main cause was contaminated blood. though the health system.
https://earthsky.org/human-world/trillions-of-viruses-human-virome
Each viral group is represented with a unique colour.