What comes to your mind when you hear the word ‘bacteria’? Diseases? Nasty bugs? Food poisoning??? If that is all you can think of, I think you need to read this blogpost. You may also want to check out this video.
Do you know there are countless bacteria living on you and within you right now? They have always been there ever since your existence. Not hundreds. Not thousands. About ten to a hundred trillion (1 trillion = 1,000,000,000,000) microorganisms (or microbes) that include bacteria, fungi and viruses which belong to a total of 900 to 1,000 species. They constitute at least 2 kilograms of your body weight. Yes, that’s true for all of us. In fact, our lives would not have even been possible without them. They are like ‘supertiny superheroes’ that help us keep healthy and alive; and are often collectively called the human microbiota or the gut flora.
“Microorganisms are living things that are too small to be seen with the naked eye. They are normally viewed using a microscope. Bacteria, viruses, and some moulds are examples of microorganisms. Most microorganisms are essential to life on Earth. However, some of them are harmful to humans, animals, and plants and can cause disease.”
Britannica Kids
“Microbiota is the assemblage of microorganisms present in a defined environment. More specifically, the microbiota varies according to its surrounding environment. The term microbiota is preceded by the name of the environment in which it is located. For example, ‘gut microbiota’ refers to the microbiota in the intestinal tract.”
Future Learn
“The microorganisms that live inside and on humans (known as the microbiota) are estimated to outnumber human somatic and germ cells by a factor of ten. Together, the genomes of these microbial symbionts (collectively defined as the microbiome) provide traits that humans did not need to evolve on their own.”
Nature
Where do we get these microbes from?
To understand this, we’ll have to rewind a bit to our own history into this world. Like several other traits that we received from our mother, the first dose of our microbiota came as a gift to us from our lovely and caring mother. A major percentage of our microbiota is acquired maternally which shapes the development of our microbiota later in life. Earlier on scientists used to believe that babies are born sterile; but now we know that before we saw the outside world, while taking a trip through our mum’s birth canal, we picked up several microbes and got ourselves covered with lots and lots of them. For those of us who were born with a C-section, the microbes that we got laden with during our birth were very different and were primarily acquired from our mother’s skin. The minute we entered this world, we started getting exposed to a plethora of microbes that were present in our surroundings and this started influencing our microbiota. The initial microbiota is also affected by the place of birth; for those of us who were delivered at a hospital had a different set of initial microbiotas than the ones delivered at home. Another crucial dosage of our microbiota came from our mother’s milk which helped us digest the breastmilk. As infants, however, we had a very low number of microbes in and on our bodies than we have as adults. As we grew up the microbiota kept changing constantly depending on the food we were fed, the people we met and the microbes we encountered in the environment around us. The microbial populations shifted a lot during our early childhood; and it continues to change throughout our life during the events such as puberty, pregnancy, menopause, illness, antibiotic treatment, hospitalization, major changes in diet, and the list goes on.
What do they do?
The microbes living in and on different parts of our body specialize to serve unique functions that play fundamental roles in our well-being. A majority of these live in our gut (intestinal tract) which makes our gut one of the most densely populated microbial habitats on the earth. Many of these microbes help in absorption of food in the colon and prevent harmful bacteria from gaining a foothold in our gut by outcompeting them. Some of the microbes are thought to regulate and train the cells of our immune system to fight against infections. Some of these influence our metabolism while others influence our brains and behaviour. As we grow older, our microbial profile declines in number and variability; these age-related variations may perhaps be linked with several common conditions often associated with ageing.
Do you still think that all bacteria are nasty? Let me know in the comments.
In the upcoming blogposts, I will be discussing a lot more about our bacterial friends…so stay tuned!
– Your ScienceBuddy Arohi
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- Gut microbiota info
- Britannica encyclopaedia- Human microbiome
- The infant microbiome development: mom matters
- Microbiology of the gastrointestinal tract
- The human microbiota in health and disease
- Feeding the Beast: How Germs Eat for You
- Competing bacteria in gut maintain health – study
- Delivery mode shapes the acquisition and structure of the initial microbiota across multiple body habitats in newborns
- The Relationship Between Breast Milk Components and the Infant Gut Microbiota
- Age-related changes in gut microbiota composition from newborn to centenarian: a cross-sectional study
Learning With Fun
Watch this animation to learn about the microbiota in a fun way!
Long time supporter, and thought I’d drop a comment.
Your wordpress site is very sleek – hope you don’t mind me asking what theme you’re using?
(and don’t mind if I steal it? :P)
I just launched my site –also built in wordpress like yours– but
the theme slows (!) the site down quite a bit.
In case you have a minute, you can find it by searching for
“royal cbd” on Google (would appreciate any feedback) – it’s still in the works.
Keep up the good work– and hope you all take
care of yourself during the coronavirus scare!