Microbes That Keep Us Healthy Starting To Die Off 260
Dr_Ken writes with a quote from Scientific American:
"The human body has some 10 trillion human cells—but 10 times that number of microbial cells. So what happens when such an important part of our bodies goes missing? With rapid changes in sanitation, medicine and lifestyle in the past century, some of these indigenous species are facing decline, displacement and possibly even extinction. In many of the world's larger ecosystems, scientists can predict what might happen when one of the central species is lost, but in the human microbial environment—which is still largely uncharacterized—most of these rapid changes are not yet understood. 'This is the next frontier and has real significance for human health, public health and medicine,' says Betsy Foxman, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health in Ann Arbor. Meanwhile, each new generation in developed countries comes into the world with fewer of these native populations. 'They're actually missing some component of their microbiota that they've evolved to have,' Foxman says."
Re:If we evolved to have them... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:If we evolved to have them... (Score:3, Insightful)
I was thinking the same thing.
There may be a downside to all this though, from what I understand of digestion and our immune system, it seems to me that when you lose X amount of microbes then you will end up with more of a different microbe that may breed much faster due to lack of competition.
Dumb logic (Score:3, Insightful)
No antibiotics for me (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless I feel like I'm at death's door, I do not go to the doctor. I'll bet most of the people who are missing these microbes have been exposed to a lot of antibiotics. This may also explain why staph infections are turning deadly, and I know it's why Western kids have lots of strange allergies.
The Hadza are the last hunter gatherers in the world, probably. They seem to be doing alright. (Not saying I'd give up my lifestyle, but there are lessons to be learned.)
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/12/hadza/finkel-text [nationalgeographic.com]
Re:Easy solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe there is a middle road? Reasonable sanitation (ya know, soap up the groin, armpits and feet when showering and all that) but cut out the obsessive stuff. At work we have little things that you can use to spray your hands with antibacterial solution at the exit from stairwells. People take antibiotics "just in case", and so forth.
Maybe less really is more sometimes. I.e. there probably is such a thing as being too clean. No need to swing to the other extreme.
mother nature (Score:5, Insightful)
Another easy solution! (Score:5, Insightful)
They're very useful... (Score:4, Insightful)
The presence of neutral microbes offers resource competition against random microbes taking up residence, especially harmful ones.
Since there is competition, new Microbes of any sort, are less likely to flourish unchecked, than if there was no competition.
Think of how many computer users would be using MacOS or Linux KDE, if Windows didn't exist, or if Microsoft were to suddenly drop dead and stop making new versions of Windows that were successful at competing for placement on people's computers.
The loss/extinction of some of these neutral, or even beneficials microbes could be quite bad, if it makes humans more vulnerable to spontaneous intrusion by others and digestive system issues.
The less diversity in the neutral microbes... the more likely that a malicious microbe releases one toxin that happens to kill them all.
Re:If we evolved to have them... (Score:1, Insightful)
and I always wondered why people cut off the ends of their penis.
Re:No antibiotics for me (Score:5, Insightful)
About a fifth of all [Hadza] babies die within their first year, and nearly half of all children do not make it to age 15.
That may be your ideal, but for me there are advantages to modernity.
Idolizing the Hadza is like those people who never take their pets to the vet, because the animals don't go to the vet in the wild. It's true animals don't go to the vet in the wild, but they also have shorter life spans.
Interesting article, btw. Glad you posted it. But doctors do good things.
Re:Easy solution (Score:3, Insightful)
What a profoundly stupid thing to say. Unless they are used to treat a specific life-threatening infection, antibiotics don't prolong your lifespan. And nobody is saying you shouldn't treat your Bubonic plague to protect your E. coli.
So yes, you can stop sterilizing your entire environment and taking antibiotics "just in case", and still enjoy the benefits of modern advances in sanitation, medicine and nutrition.
Yes, let me restate for the hopelessly stupid. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, for all of the hopelessly stupid people out there. If you feel like you are sick and you don't have a cold, go to a doctor to find out what it is. If your lymph nodes stay swollen for some reason, go to the doctor. If you have unexplainable pain, go to the doctor. When you get to a certain age, turn and cough. However, if you come down with the sniffles, suck it up and don't run to get Tamiflu and antibiotics shoved up your ass just because.
Christ almighty. I hope they never take the warning labels off small electronics. Otherwise you'll probably end up trying to use your Bagelator in the bathtub.
Actually it's both for average lifespan. (Score:4, Insightful)
But the average longevity is only going up because of fewer early adult deaths. Longevity only considers those that reach adulthood.
Basically you are flat out wrong. The maximum expected age hasn't moved much. The rates of death for all younger years has been going down for many centuries.
The 99th percentile may have always lived about the same length of time. The 50th percentile are living much longer now.
Re:If we evolved to have them... (Score:3, Insightful)
We do not need them... We ARE them!
They say that wars, hate and greed will kill humanity.
But I believe, that it’s the human arrogance will kill us.
Soap vs Santizers (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems that most products advertised today pull on the "santize everything you touch" FUD that's out there. I work at a large technology company, and they recently installed automated hand sanitizers by every external door. I read an article recently that claimed that EMC was having cleaning crews sanitize every doorknob in their campus once a week.
This isn't just a corporate activity, I've got a friend with a 5yr old son in that the son has been conditioned to ask mom for Purel every 5-10 minutes. I also find it funny that kids are being taught to eat a McDonald's burger by holding the wrapper. The funny part is that the people making the burgers aren't wearing gloves...
Reminds me of the old joke: A Harvard and MIT student, both just finished using the urinal and the MIT student walks towards the door. The Harvard student says, "Hey, at Harvard they teach us to wash our hands after using the urinal!" The MIT student fires back, "At MIT they teach us not to pee on our hands!"
Re:If we evolved to have them... (Score:1, Insightful)
Maybe we no longer need them?
After all, what's really wrong with going into fatal allergic convulsions just because someone waves a bag of peanuts in your general direction?
Re:If we evolved to have them... (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is that the consequences will never "work out" - change is happening fast and will not slow down, so there will always be new data and new issues to worry about.
Re:Another easy solution! (Score:4, Insightful)
Our "average lifespan" has been increasing because we're eliminating infant mortality, not because most people only lived to some ridiculously low age.
Life expectancy is always stated with a starting age, e.g. at birth, at age 5, at age 18, etc.
Life expectancy at birth obviously goes up rapidly with lower infant mortality. Life expectancy at age 5 just as obviously depends on other factors. Our current life expectancy at all age levels is the highest it's ever been. In other words, you just demonstrated that you suck at actuarial rates.
Re:Easy solution (Score:4, Insightful)
That’s the thing: There is a “too much”. Like with “sanitation“/antibiotics.
You essentially need that massive amount microbes in your digestive system, to digest your food. They are as much a part of you, as your heart or your brain.
If you kill them, you kill yourself!
If you ever had a wrecked digestive system, you know what you are talking about. Not only dose life become really shitty. It even changes your character. And not only as secondary effects. But because your digestive system got just as much neurons as your brain, and the messed up digestion messes with those neurons too.
Just as you got a protective film on your tongue, and on your whole skin.
If you kill them off, you basically lose the firewall and part of your PSU. Good luck withstanding the DDOS and botnet shitstorm and the hurricane outside then...
Sure you can try to recreate protection in form of chemicals and bubble boy bubbles. But what’s the point, if you already got a extremely effective system that’s been in use and improvement since millions, if not billions of years.
Those who do not understand nature are doomed to recreate it. Badly. ^^
Re:mother nature (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:If we evolved to have them... (Score:3, Insightful)
us having evolved to have them would probably indicate that they give some sort of advantage to not having them.
Or that it is not worth the cost of getting rid of them.
In any case, this is one of the most innuendo-laced collections of speculative bullshit /. has linked in a long time, and that's saying something. Everything in the article is prefaced with "may be" and "could be" and "possibly". Well, the Earth may be in danger because it is possible it could be hit by a low-albedo asteroid tomorrow. Doesn't that scare you and make you want to pay attention to me? If not, why are you paying attention to article?
The scare-mongering /. headline is a nice example of the evolution of lies: researches say, "This is an interesting topic", Scientific American says, "This may be happening and it may be scary!" and /. says, "Things that definitely keep us healthy are definitely dieing off!"
"Nerds" used to refer to overly pedantic people who cared about the truth. I guess /. isn't news for those people any more.
Re:Easy solution (Score:3, Insightful)
Just go back to nature, eschew all this horrible modern sanitation and antibiotics, they are all poisoning you. Of course you expected lifespan will be changed from ~80 to about 35, but at least you won't be destroying our precious internal ecosystem. Come on, take one for the team!
Brett
So many things wrong with this...
First of all, a large reason our average lifespan is going up is not because everyone is living to 100+. It's because we're eliminating a large amount of infant mortality.
You're also taking an all-or-nothing kind of approach that's simply idiotic. Nobody is suggesting we do away with modern sanitation and antibiotics... But maybe we don't need antibacterial chemicals built into every single object we touch. Maybe we don't need hand sanitizer stationed every 10 feet. Maybe we don't need to be pumped full of antibiotics every time we get the sniffles.
And they way you're calling it "our precious internal ecosystem"... You do know what they're talking about, right? This isn't some kind of tree-hugging PETA nonsense... This is about the insides of our bodies. It's about beneficial microbes that we need in order to function properly. Have you ever been on a heavy round of antibiotics that killed off a large amount of your intestinal fauna? It's potentially life-threatening, which is why they'll also have you on some heavy pro-biotics at the same time.
Re:Easy solution (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:mother nature (Score:3, Insightful)
washing your hands with (regular) soap and hot water was almost no different than washing your hands with anti-bacterial soap in terms of killing bacteria.
So you could look at it another way, then. If washing your hands gets rid of more bacteria than the supposed antimicrobial agent, then all the people complaining about the supposed evils of antimicrobial soaps are falling for a red herring. If antimicrobial agents aren't really what's getting rid of the bacteria, then antimicrobial agents can't be creating this race of super-bacteria that people suppose they are (or whatever the fear is about). Rather, they're just a marketing gimmick designed to sell soap. Ignore them and buy the soap that you think smells the best on your hands, or that lathers the best, or whatever other property of soap you desire. The antimicrobial agents may not be helping anything, but they're not really hurting anything, either.