We are Living in a Microbial World
150 years ago, it was hard for people to believe that living things too tiny to see—microbes—could cause major human diseases. Today, it might seem equally astonishing to learn that microbes are actually essential to keeping us alive. Of the millions of types of microbes on the planet, disease-causing microbes (pathogens) make up only a very tiny fraction.
What is a microbe?
The term microbe (which is often used interchangeably with microorganism, bacteria, germ, and even bug) includes bacteria, viruses, some fungi, and other life forms too tiny to see. Microbes are found in almost every environment on Earth.
Trillions of Friends...
Humans depend on microbial communities in more ways than you can imagine. For example, microbes:
Partners for life.
From the moment we were born, microbes began living in and on our bodies. These early colonizers helped to "educate" our immune systems to differentiate good microbial partners from pathogenic microbes. Amazingly, only about 1 out of 10 cells in the human body is actually a human cell: most of the cells that make up our bodies, 90%, are microbes!
In fact, humans couldn't have evolved without microbes. Billions of years ago, microbes converted the Earth's entire atmosphere from nitrogen-based to oxygen-based, making it possible for larger forms of life to evolve. Human evolution has been inextricably linked with the microbes that have surrounded us from the very beginning.
Some of the microbes living in our bodies actually help us fight against pathogens by competing against them for space. This mutually beneficial relationship helps to protect us from getting diseases while giving the microbes a place to live.
Do yourself a favor and don't kill your body's microbes by washing and showering in chlorinated water or using anti-bacterial soaps! If you have municipal water, chances are that it has chlorine added to it to kill pathogenic bacteria. The problem arises when cities don't then filter out the chlorine from the water so that people don't ingest it, bathe in it, wash their clothes and fresh produce in it and have it volatilizing in the air every time they flush their toilet. There is no safe level of chlorine to ingest in your body or absorb through your skin. Period. Check out this link on the NY State Department of Health website titles "The Facts about Chlorine". Notice that the Chlorine is like a broad spectrum pesticide, except instead of killing all the insects it comes into contact with, it kills microbes. Actually, chlorine is a key ingredient in many pesticides. Here is the whole house water filter that I use for my family and highly recommend.
Invite a microbe to dinner.
Many of the foods we eat would be indigestible without the 10-100 trillion microbes living within our guts. Bacteroidesthetaiotaomicron, for example, helps our bodies process complex sugars. Microbes also play a major role in creating many of the foods we love, such as cheese, yogurt and bread.
Rinsing your fresh produce in chlorinated water kills its beneficial microbes! Eat fermented and cultured foods, like sauerkraut, kimchi, and raw milk, which contain health giving, live microbes! Modern "food safety" processes such as pasteurization and irradiation kill all microbes, good and bad. Grow your own food or buy from a farmer you trust and eat food as nature intended, full of life!
Livable climate.
Without microbes, we wouldn't have oxygen to breathe. Plants aren't the only things that carry out photosynthesis: photosynthetic microbes are responsible for about half of the photosynthesis on Earth, simultaneously increasing the amount of oxygen and decreasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the air. Through this process, microbes are helping to mitigate some of the greenhouse gasses that cause global warming.
Healthy farms.
The microbial communities which inhabit soils are some of the most complex known to science, and yet remain poorly understood despite their economic importance. Microbes living in the soil provide plants with natural protection from pests and diseases. They are also essential for converting nitrogen and other nutrients into forms that plants can use to grow. Microbes break down plant residue and animal wastes so that they can be recycled into nutrient rich soil amendments.
Cleaning up.
Because of their special adaptations, some microbes actually degrade-and thereby render harmless, chemicals that are extremely dangerous to humans. These microbes can help clean up gasoline leaks, oil spills, sewage, nuclear waste, heavy metals, and many other types of pollution.
Potted plants with microbes in the soil pull out household toxins from the air that are constantly off gassing from treated woods, paints and furniture in our homes. Now that's a breath of fresh indoor air! NASA has done studies showing that for every 100 square feet of indoor space, a minimum of one 6-8" potted plant is necessary to clean the air of toxins such as benzene, formaldehyde and other common indoor toxins.
Productive ecosystems.
Humans aren't the only ones that depend on microbes for digesting food, fighting disease and maintaining a livable planet. No plants or animals could live without microbes.
It takes a village.
Most of the things microbes do for our world could never be done by a single type of microbe alone, but require a complex community working together whereas each individual does its' part to help the whole group function. The emerging field of Metagenomics is exploring how whole communities of microbes benefit human health and the environment. And the Human Microbiome Project (HMP) aims to characterize the microbial communities found at several different sites on the human body, including nasal passages, oral cavities, skin, gastrointestinal tract, and urogenital tract, and to analyze the role of these microbes in human health and disease.
The information on this Web page was derived from the poster Our Microbial Planet and the brochure The Vital Role of Microbes on Earth. National Academy of Sciences.
150 years ago, it was hard for people to believe that living things too tiny to see—microbes—could cause major human diseases. Today, it might seem equally astonishing to learn that microbes are actually essential to keeping us alive. Of the millions of types of microbes on the planet, disease-causing microbes (pathogens) make up only a very tiny fraction.
What is a microbe?
The term microbe (which is often used interchangeably with microorganism, bacteria, germ, and even bug) includes bacteria, viruses, some fungi, and other life forms too tiny to see. Microbes are found in almost every environment on Earth.
Trillions of Friends...
Humans depend on microbial communities in more ways than you can imagine. For example, microbes:
- Make air breathable
- Keep us healthy
- Help us digest food
- Clean up hazardous chemicals
- Support and protect crops
Partners for life.
From the moment we were born, microbes began living in and on our bodies. These early colonizers helped to "educate" our immune systems to differentiate good microbial partners from pathogenic microbes. Amazingly, only about 1 out of 10 cells in the human body is actually a human cell: most of the cells that make up our bodies, 90%, are microbes!
In fact, humans couldn't have evolved without microbes. Billions of years ago, microbes converted the Earth's entire atmosphere from nitrogen-based to oxygen-based, making it possible for larger forms of life to evolve. Human evolution has been inextricably linked with the microbes that have surrounded us from the very beginning.
Some of the microbes living in our bodies actually help us fight against pathogens by competing against them for space. This mutually beneficial relationship helps to protect us from getting diseases while giving the microbes a place to live.
Do yourself a favor and don't kill your body's microbes by washing and showering in chlorinated water or using anti-bacterial soaps! If you have municipal water, chances are that it has chlorine added to it to kill pathogenic bacteria. The problem arises when cities don't then filter out the chlorine from the water so that people don't ingest it, bathe in it, wash their clothes and fresh produce in it and have it volatilizing in the air every time they flush their toilet. There is no safe level of chlorine to ingest in your body or absorb through your skin. Period. Check out this link on the NY State Department of Health website titles "The Facts about Chlorine". Notice that the Chlorine is like a broad spectrum pesticide, except instead of killing all the insects it comes into contact with, it kills microbes. Actually, chlorine is a key ingredient in many pesticides. Here is the whole house water filter that I use for my family and highly recommend.
Invite a microbe to dinner.
Many of the foods we eat would be indigestible without the 10-100 trillion microbes living within our guts. Bacteroidesthetaiotaomicron, for example, helps our bodies process complex sugars. Microbes also play a major role in creating many of the foods we love, such as cheese, yogurt and bread.
Rinsing your fresh produce in chlorinated water kills its beneficial microbes! Eat fermented and cultured foods, like sauerkraut, kimchi, and raw milk, which contain health giving, live microbes! Modern "food safety" processes such as pasteurization and irradiation kill all microbes, good and bad. Grow your own food or buy from a farmer you trust and eat food as nature intended, full of life!
Livable climate.
Without microbes, we wouldn't have oxygen to breathe. Plants aren't the only things that carry out photosynthesis: photosynthetic microbes are responsible for about half of the photosynthesis on Earth, simultaneously increasing the amount of oxygen and decreasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the air. Through this process, microbes are helping to mitigate some of the greenhouse gasses that cause global warming.
Healthy farms.
The microbial communities which inhabit soils are some of the most complex known to science, and yet remain poorly understood despite their economic importance. Microbes living in the soil provide plants with natural protection from pests and diseases. They are also essential for converting nitrogen and other nutrients into forms that plants can use to grow. Microbes break down plant residue and animal wastes so that they can be recycled into nutrient rich soil amendments.
Cleaning up.
Because of their special adaptations, some microbes actually degrade-and thereby render harmless, chemicals that are extremely dangerous to humans. These microbes can help clean up gasoline leaks, oil spills, sewage, nuclear waste, heavy metals, and many other types of pollution.
Potted plants with microbes in the soil pull out household toxins from the air that are constantly off gassing from treated woods, paints and furniture in our homes. Now that's a breath of fresh indoor air! NASA has done studies showing that for every 100 square feet of indoor space, a minimum of one 6-8" potted plant is necessary to clean the air of toxins such as benzene, formaldehyde and other common indoor toxins.
Productive ecosystems.
Humans aren't the only ones that depend on microbes for digesting food, fighting disease and maintaining a livable planet. No plants or animals could live without microbes.
It takes a village.
Most of the things microbes do for our world could never be done by a single type of microbe alone, but require a complex community working together whereas each individual does its' part to help the whole group function. The emerging field of Metagenomics is exploring how whole communities of microbes benefit human health and the environment. And the Human Microbiome Project (HMP) aims to characterize the microbial communities found at several different sites on the human body, including nasal passages, oral cavities, skin, gastrointestinal tract, and urogenital tract, and to analyze the role of these microbes in human health and disease.
The information on this Web page was derived from the poster Our Microbial Planet and the brochure The Vital Role of Microbes on Earth. National Academy of Sciences.
