FAQs about Microbes – and just the Facts

FAQs about Microbes – and just the Facts

Climate change, MRSA, flu, vaccines – sometimes finding reliable, understandable sources of information on these important topics is difficult. Professional organizations, such as the American Society of Microbiology (ASM) or the Microbiology Society (Europe) are excellent resources for accurate information. One of my favorite ASM resources are their FAQs series. They are informative without being overwhelming and are on a nice variety of topics from pathogens (MRSA, flu, West Nile Virus) to environmental issues like oil spills and climate change. Of course, microbes are also important for our food and drinks – so there’s a FAQ about the microbes that make cheese and beer. Finally, the human microbiome and built microbiome (microbiomes of our buildings!) are also included. Take a look at some reliable FAQs about microbes and share them with folks you know.

Book Review: Dirt is Good

Book Review: Dirt is Good

Dirt is Good: The Advantages of Germs for Your Child’s Developing Immune System answers parent’s questions about the microbiome and their kid’s health. Parents, hold on to your diaper bags, Dirt is Good: The Advantages of Germs for Your Child’s Developing Immune System seeks to answer microbiome-related parenting questions. Science writer Sandra Blakeslee teams up with microbiome scientists, Rob Knight, PhD and Jack Gilbert, PhD, to eloquently capture the answers to the hundreds of questions Rob and Jack have been asked by concerned parents. After a general introduction about the human microbiome, Dirt is Good starts with the interaction of the microbiome and human immune system in pregnancy. Continuing on through birth, first foods (both liquid and solid), the book touches on a range of topics organized loosely into chapters including the environment, conditions, depression, vaccines, and tests. There’s an amazing diversity of chapter topics. What Dirt is Good does well Talks candidly, clearly, and quickly about the current understanding of the microbiome and children’s health. Dirt is Good is clear about not overselling the microbiome and current probiotics. Throughout the book are stories of how their experience as parents and microbiome researchers change their ideas of cleanliness and health. What is

Dear Beyoncé: May The Carter Twins Meet Helpful Microbial Life Partners

Dear Beyoncé: May The Carter Twins Meet Helpful Microbial Life Partners

An open letter to Beyoncé wishing her and her family well as the twins meet their microbial partners for life.  Dear Beyoncé, As you wait and prepare for the twins’ birth please don’t forget the invisible microbes that will protect, feed, and teach your babies for the rest of their lives.  Yep, I’m talking about “germs” or more politically correctly – “microbes”. Babies are “microbe magnets”. Those first microbes that baby encounters become their microbes for life. They are stuck together – life partners in sickness and in health. What’s cool is that these microbes are security guards keeping away diseases, chefs chopping up food to feed baby, and soothing Jedi masters who teach baby’s immune system what to kill and what to ignore. In my grandmother’s day, people in developed countries died from communicable diseases – polio, mumps, measles, yellow fever. Diseases that are spread from person to person by sneezing, coughing, or spread by insects, like mosquitos. Today people die from non-communicable diseases – diabetes, allergies, asthma, autoimmune diseases, and more. Our diseases today aren’t due to specific microbial pathogens. Vaccines, handwashing, clean water, sewers, and antibiotics keep these easy-to-spread microbial diseases at low numbers. Instead, today’s diseases

Book Review: “Your Baby’s Microbiome” is an Excellent Resource

Book Review: “Your Baby’s Microbiome” is an Excellent Resource

Your Baby’s Microbiome: The Critical Role of Vaginal Birth and Breastfeeding for Lifelong Health summarizes the latest scientific research on the benefits of vaginal birth and breastfeeding to an infant’s microbiome. Written for childbirth educators, doulas, midwives, lactation consultants, and interested parents, Your Baby’s Microbiome is packed full of detailed information on the microbial and epigenetic differences between vaginal and c-section births. For the parent debating between a scheduled c-section or vaginal birth – this book is a must read. Your Baby’s Microbiome provides all readers with the latest science – straight from the researchers – on how vaginal birth and breastfeeding are thought to influence gut microbiome establishment.   Sticks to the Data I greatly appreciated the restraint of the authors in discussing areas like water-birthing and in-caul births, where the research has not been done. They make it extremely clear that the research hasn’t been done, but then do provide thoughtful ideas from the data currently available. I find this extremely important for such a rapidly developing science. Perhaps the reason Your Baby’s Microbiome doesn’t over-reach is because the book was written from interviews with the scientists done for the documentary Microbirth. “The movie had to have one central message and we

The Vaginal Microbiome During Pregnancy – At Least Something is Stable!

The Vaginal Microbiome During Pregnancy – At Least Something is Stable!

The vaginal microbiome during pregnancy is more stable than that of non-pregnant women. Women delivering at full-term gestation had a Lactobacillus dominant vaginal microbiome. Pregnancy is a human-body changer. Ask any woman who’s gone through it. My hair went from light blonde to this mousy blonde after my first trimester with my first baby, Jac. Never mind that baby belly I don’t think I’ll ever lose. That pooch is part of me now. Though I have to say, pregnancy was the one time in my life where my allergies and eczema weren’t a problem. So what about your microbial self? Your microbiome? Do all body sites have a more or less stable microbiome during pregnancy? Or do some body sites, like gut or vaginal microbiomes, change during pregnancy? Since birth seems to be the primary time that microbes are passed from mother to offspring, perhaps the vaginal microbiome would change as birth approaches. Vaginal Community State Types The Ravel lab sampled the vaginal fluid microbiome community throughout the pregnancy of 22 women who delivered babies at term [1]. The vaginal fluid microbiome of pregnant and non-pregnant women was compared. What the researchers found was that the vaginal bacterial communities of both pregnant and