August 05, 2007
The Alien Invaders
The alien invaders, whether legal or illegal, are overrunning us.
Some of us think we are at war with them. Others regard them more benignly. Some say they are performing the jobs that we don't want to do, or even cannot do.
By the latest measures they already outnumber us by ten to one.
I'm talking about the bacteria that inhabit our bodies. Scientists estimate that there are ten times more bacteria in us than human cells, with the majority of them residing in our gut. That's tens of trillions of microbes, which comes to about three pounds.
Some of them aid in our digestion, breaking down molecules that our native digestive systems can't handle. Some of them may be responsible for obesity or the lack of obesity. It has been found that the bacterial profile of obese people is different from the bacterial profile of non-obese people, but it's not known at this point whether there is a cause and effect relationship or which way it might go.
Yes, I've just been listening to the July 19th episode of Futures in Biotech, where Dr. Jeffrey Gordon discusses the Human Microbiome. Yes, I'm a bit behind in my podcast listening...
Posted by jt at August 5, 2007 12:20 PM