Trillions of tiny creatures call your body home, including bacteria, viruses, fungi, and others.
Which leads to the obvious question: can we hack our health by hacking our microbiome?
Some coat your skin (yes, even after you wash your hands).
Your large intestine is the largest repository of microbesabout three pounds' worth according to some estimates.
Microbes make thestink in your armpitsand theVitamin K that helps your blood clot.
Every day, scientists find microbes in new places, and new links to health.
So what is a microbiome, exactly?
Some of the details are fuzzy, but we know that our microbiomes are linked to our health.
The immune systemdoesn’t develop properlywithout signals from skin microbes.
Microbes caninfluence obesityand have been linked to a variety of inflammatory and autoimmune disorders likerheumatoid arthritis.
We know that probioticscan prevent a horrific infection called NECthat kills preemies.
Beyond that,results are mostly inconclusive.
Probiotics seem to protect against diarrhea in some trials but not others, for example.
Eisen explains why probiotics' effects are usually very small.
And it’s very clear that that’s true.
They just don’t hang out.
It’s not so great for long term health benefits…
There’s very little evidence for benefits to healthy people.
Why don’t they take up residence?
“Look at where they’re from.
Many of the strains used in probiotics are not human gut residents packaged as probiotics.
They’re isolated from yogurt.”
What Might Actually Be Effective?
Changing the diet is a more sensible way to start, rather than introducing microbes.
I think in ten years, there will be that connection to add the microbiome into that arena.
This leaves ahandful of nutrients that are sometimes called “prebiotics.
That’s still mostly speculation though.
Feeding your microbes can be delicious.
Here’s some of his speculation:
There’s no doubt that people are going to dope via microbes.
There are companies talking about big cosmetic changes.
There are going to be new smells, new functions.
I’ve heard people talk about glow in the dark poop!
you could just give them a pill with a microbe that has a new function.
I think all of those things are coming.
(He also mentionedSecond Genome, but they don’t seem to have a comparable service right now.)
Photos bysaluletas,alice-photo,3Dalia,brownpau,F Delventhal, andk rupp.
