Where does your microbiome come from?

Sharon Muza at Lamaze International’s blog Science & Sensibility recently asked me to do a guest blog on the source of the human microbiome. My post – The Healthy birth: Dyad or Triad? Exploring Birth and the Microbiome – focuses on literature from the last few years identifying three potential sources: birth mode (vaginal or Cesarean), birth location (home, birth center, and hospital), and first foods (breastfeeding and/or formula). New findings that were especially interesting to me included

Normal disturbance of the microbiome

“Great”, you’re thinking, “I’m covered in little germs microbes and they live on me in their special habitats, icky, but so what?” These microbes may provide specific benefits, such as the nutritional examples mentioned earlier. However, perhaps one of the biggest services these microbes have is simply taking up space! “Niche filling” or “colonization resistance” is an important and essential ecosystem service. In any habitat, there are places to live and nutrients to feed upon. An example is my attempt at gardening. Each spring we clean out the garden and plant seeds and seedlings. Most years we put down weed cloth around the seedlings. My organic gardening teacher recommended planting clover as a cover crop. Both are doing the same thing – filling an available habitat to prevent weeds from colonizing and competing with the plants that we hope to harvest later. This past summer I got busy and didn’t get the weed cloth down. UGH. The weeds overtook the garden this year and we only got a few tomatoes and peppers. The squash, beans, and broccoli were overrun. Bummer – lesson reinforced. Similarly, your microbial ecosystem needs to stay intact, filled, and in balance. Aristotle once said “Nature abhors

Gut Check: The microbiology game

When did your child last give you the black plague? A fecal transplant? Mine did the other night when we played– Gut Check: The Microbiology Game. A fabulous fun, educational, and scientifically correct board game. Here’s a typical conversation: “Mama, I’m going to give you a fungal infection.” “That’s fine – with 4 beneficial microbes in my gut it won’t affect me.” “hmmm – well, if I use the antibiotic tetracycline on you – you’ll lose half of your helpful bacteria – then just wait till the next round! ” Two moves in Gut Check. Four lessons learned by my 6 year old daughter: 1) high bacterial diversity has a protective effect against pathogens, 2) the word “beneficial” means helpful, 3) not all bacteria are pathogens, and 4) antibiotics kill all bacteria – helpful and harmful. WOAH –isn’t that just awesome?!

From past to present: Studies of the human microbiome

The study of the human microbiome has changed the way we think of ourselves in health and disease. From fecal transplants to pre- and probiotics, popular, basic, and applied sciences, including human medicine are beginning to acknowledge the role of bacteria and other microbes in eukaryotic health. The term” microbiome” was coined in 2001 by J. Lederberg [1]. The first studies to change our perception of what it is to be human, probably started with the first releases of papers from the National Institutes of Health funded Human Microbiome Project (NIH HMP) in 2010 [2] and 2012 [3]. However, the true recorded origins of microbiology and first recorded studies of the human microbiome began with a cloth merchant at the beginnings of the organized study of science in Europe. Past perspectives on the human microbiome In 1677 Antony van Leewenhoeck – a citizen scientist – first described “animalcula” in letters conveyed by a physician friend to the newly formed Royal Society of London [4]. Leewenhoeck’s meticulous and detailed descriptions and measurements of the microscopic world were made through simple microscopes he made out of glass lenses and metal plates. His most powerful microscope magnified an object 266 times! Initially, his

You’re mostly microbes!

The plagues of our modern society include diabetes, allergies, asthma, obesity, autism, and numerous digestive system disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome, colitis, Crohn’s disease, and celiac disease. The symptoms and difficulties inherent with each of these diseases is different. However, modern molecular biology research techniques have revealed a commonality. People with each of these ailments have a microbiome that is strikingly different from that of healthy people. Micro-bio-what? This blog, Mostly Microbes, explores the interactions between microbes and us, their human hosts. In particular, I focus on the importance of the human microbiome for and during pregnancy, birth, infancy, and early childhood. What is the microbiome? The microbiome is all the microbial cells living in a particular location [1]. In the case of humans, the human microbiome includes over 100 trillion bacteria, viruses, and fungi that live in or on your body [2]. Perhaps as much as ten times more microbes make up your body than human cells [2] (though new estimates [3] put the number of human cells at 3.72 trillion instead of 10 trillion). You are their home. You may have immediately thought “ew- I want to wash my hands now!”, but hold on a minute. The