• Welcome to Phoenix Rising!

    Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of and finding treatments for complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia (FM), long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.

    To become a member, simply click the Register button at the top right.

New York Times: We Are Our Bacteria

Firestormm

Senior Member
Messages
5,055
Location
Cornwall England
July 14, 2014
Personal Health
We Are Our Bacteria

14wellbrody-tmagArticle.jpg


We may think of ourselves as just human, but we’re really a mass of microorganisms housed in a human shell. Every person alive is host to about 100 trillion bacterial cells. They outnumber human cells 10 to one and account for 99.9 percent of the unique genes in the body.

Katrina Ray, a senior editor of Nature Reviews, recently suggested that the vast number of microbes in the gut could be considered a “human microbial ‘organ’” and asked, “Are we more microbe than man?”

Our collection of microbiota, known as the microbiome, is the human equivalent of an environmental ecosystem. Although the bacteria together weigh a mere three pounds, their composition determines much about how the body functions and, alas, sometimes malfunctions.

Like ecosystems the world over, the human microbiome is losing its diversity, to the potential detriment of the health of those it inhabits.

Dr. Martin J. Blaser, a specialist in infectious diseases at the New York University School of Medicine and the director of the Human Microbiome Program, has studied the role of bacteria in disease for more than three decades. His research extends well beyond infectious diseases to autoimmune conditions and other ailments that have been increasing sharply worldwide.

In his new book, “Missing Microbes,” Dr. Blaser links the declining variety within the microbiome to our increased susceptibility to serious, often chronic conditions, from allergies and celiac disease to Type 1 diabetes and obesity. He and others primarily blame antibiotics for the connection.

The damaging effect of antibiotics on microbial diversity starts early, Dr. Blaser said. The average American child is given nearly three courses of antibiotics in the first two years of life, and eight more during the next eight years. Even a short course of antibiotics like the widely prescribed Z-pack (azithromycin, taken for five days), can result in long-term shifts in the body’s microbial environment.

But antibiotics are not the only way the balance within us can be disrupted. Cesarean deliveries, which have soared in recent decades, encourage the growth of microbes from the mother’s skin, instead of from the birth canal, in the baby’s gut, Dr. Blaser said in an interview.

This change in microbiota can reshape an infant’s metabolism and immune system. A recent review of 15 studies involving 163,796 births found that, compared with babies delivered vaginally, those born by cesarean section were 26 percent more likely to be overweight and 22 percent more likely to be obese as adults.

The placenta has a microbiome of its own, researchers have discovered, which may also contribute to the infant’s gut health and help mitigate the microbial losses caused by cesarean sections.

Other studies have found major differences in the microorganisms living in the guts of normal-weight and obese individuals. Although such studies cannot tell which came first — the weight problem or the changed microbiota — studies indicate obese mice have gut bacteria that are better able to extract calories from food.

Further evidence of a link to obesity comes from farm animals. About three-fourths of the antibiotics sold in the United States are used in livestock. These antibiotics change the animals’ microbiota, hastening their growth.

When mice are given the same antibiotics used on livestock, the metabolism of their liver changes, stimulating an increase in body fat, Dr. Blaser said.

Even more serious is the increasing number of serious disorders now linked to a distortion in the microbial balance in the human gut. They include several that are becoming more common in developed countries: gastrointestinal ailments like Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis and celiac disease; cardiovascular disease; nonalcoholic fatty liver disease; digestive disorders like chronic reflux; autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis; and asthma and allergies....

Read more: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/07/14/we-are-our-bacteria/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

Donate to Dr Ian Lipkin's ME/CFS Microbe Discovery Project:

Website: http://www.microbediscovery.org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/microbediscovery/
Twitter: Microbe Discovery @MicrobeProject

...and let's see what's in our guts that might be making us sick :)
 
Last edited:

xchocoholic

Senior Member
Messages
2,947
Location
Florida
In the case of celiac disease I'd think it would be impossible to tell which came first dysbiosis or damage. Damage to the villi wipes out enzymes that degrade food so the environment including "normal" bacteria would be subjected to putrification and fermentation from undigested food. Tc .. x
 

Sasha

Fine, thank you
Messages
17,863
Location
UK
@Sasha

Be sure to give us a book review!

It's going to take me a while to get through Blaser's book - I must say it's very well-written, though. Not sure that it's going to cover much about what to do about our stuffed-up microbiomes - I think it's going to be more covering the story of why they're getting stuffed up in the first place (antibiotics!) and the consequences.

:)
 

Firestormm

Senior Member
Messages
5,055
Location
Cornwall England
I guess it's reasonable to blame antibiotics, but what is the alternative? Until other treatments are available we are stuck with those.

I think you are right. I also think there is more that can be done to better target the use of antibiotics and restrict the use of broad-spectrum ones as well as using them unnecessarily. I think much/some of this is already occurring but it would be nice one day to be told as patient what bacteria was causing the complaint, and receive an antibiotic that specifically targets that bacteria. Also I think the NHS and other prescribers needs to focus on after-care for patients who have taken antibiotics. There should be some need now to try and redress the balance in our guts once they have been blasted by antibiotics. And long-term treatment with antibiotics has to be more carefully considered... but much of this will only come with more research and then that research will need to be applied.

I read an article about probiotics the other day: not convinced about them being a solution either to 'rebalancing' the gut microbiome. They also need to be better researched and controlled. Apparently - and I tell no lie - even a mattress is being marketed as a probiotic. It's all become something of a joke. Many products don't say what is in them or in what strength, or what dosage is needed and for what purpose... also I think there is a general feeling of distrust over efficacy. But hey-ho we'll get there in the end. In the meantime it's all a case of 'suck it and see' I suppose.
 

Sasha

Fine, thank you
Messages
17,863
Location
UK
I guess it's reasonable to blame antibiotics, but what is the alternative? Until other treatments are available we are stuck with those.

I think the issue is not the appropriate use of antibiotics but the overuse and irresponsible use.
I guess it's reasonable to blame antibiotics, but what is the alternative? Until other treatments are available we are stuck with those.

I think Firestormm is right - we need carefully targeted use of abx, not the scattershot and inappropriate use that we have now (many doctors apparently give in to patient "pester power" and give abx when there appears to be a viral, not bacterial infection).

And as he says, we also need abx to be followed by therapies to restore gut flora. If you look at the Microbe Discovery Project FAQs. you can see that Ian Lipkin is thinking along exactly those lines:

http://www.microbediscovery.org/faqs/

What kind of treatments might come out of the study?
If gut microbiome problems are identified, treatment will need to be tailored to each patient according to which kind of microbe or microbes are involved. Possible treatments include probiotics (possibly preceded by antibiotics), restriction diets and fecal transplants.​
 

Firestormm

Senior Member
Messages
5,055
Location
Cornwall England
Just to add that I would also like one day to be told by a test that the bacteria causing my symptoms (and the reason the antibiotics were prescribed), has been dealt with. Rather than depend solely on 'feeling better' or improved or unchanged etc. I think the exit from having been prescribed something could do with an overhaul and update. Else it's all subjective - at least in part. I mean if you feel better and can get on with life then great I guess: but did the abx really do the job? And how else will they learn if they don't follow up?