As Professor Rob Night, of the University of California-San Diego, told BBC, “you’re more of a microbe than a human being.” As he said, according to the most recent estimates (accurate measurement is obviously not feasible), the proportion of human-microbial cells tilts in favor of the second (43% -57%).
Gradually, scientists are beginning to realize for the sake that this “other half” of us, the microbe, plays a key role in health and disease, from allergies to Parkinson’s. This awareness already leads to new healing paths for various diseases.
“Microbes are essential to our health. Your body is not just you, “says Professor Ruth Ley of the German Max Planck Institute. We discover that these tiny creatures transform our health completely in ways we had not imagined until recently,” said Knight.
Whether on the body or within it, the microbes abound, although the actual “party” takes place in the human intestine, where their greatest concentration and variety exists.
This means that man is not only a man (or rather not a majority man) nor a genetic viewer since the purely human genome of about 20,000 genes will have to add the microbial genome, which raises the number of genes in the human body to two to 20 million!
“We do not only have a genome, as the genes of our microbe constitute a second genome that enhances our own activity. What makes us human is the combination of our own DNA with the DNA of our gut microbes, “said Professor of Microbiology Sharkis Mazmanian of Caltech’s Institute of Technology (Caltech).
And while scientists have done a very successful job with vaccines and antibiotics to fight “bad” microbes, it is becoming increasingly clear that this has devastating side effects on “good” microbes, which – at least at least – explains explosive increase in incidents of allergies and autoimmune diseases.
“Changes in the microbe that occur as a result of success in the fight against pathogenic microorganisms have now contributed to new diseases that we have to deal with,” said Dr. Lee.
Not only diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease, but even depression, autism or efficacy of anti-cancer drugs seem to be significantly influenced by our second self, the microbial. Microbial therapeutic medicine is still in its early stages, but many scientists believe that monitoring and manipulation of the microbe will be a daily routine in the future, revolutionizing medicine.