Question: what do microbes do to me?

Katie Fala answered on 13 Nov 2019:

Lots! The obvious thing that you might think about could be infection, and yes, there are many bacteria, fungi and viruses that are specialised in infecting humans and causing disease. But we often forget about the trillions of microbial cells on and in our bodies that help keep us healthy. I couldn’t possibly cover everything, and it will depend on the exact microbes that you have in your own microbiomes, but you more than likely have microbes on your skin that protect you from invading bacteria, beneficial bacteria in your mouth that can help prevent oral disease, in different compartments of your gut that can impact how well you absorb nutrients from the food you eat, how your body reacts to some medications you might take, how well your immune system works and possibly even whether or not you become ill with certain diseases. And that’s just your body, think about the foods you ate today – at the very least you probably had some plant-based foods like veggies, fruits or grains. Most plants need to form associations with special soil bacteria to help them absorb nutrients and grow… you might also have eaten foods made with or by microbes, like bread, cheese, yoghurt, kefir, saeurkraut. Maybe you might be diabetic and take a medication like insulin – we used to have to extract this from animals, but now we use bacteria to produce these molecules. Microbes were the first living things on this planet and they are everywhere, naturally. We need them as we evolved with them to stay healthy. Also, increasingly many of our biotechnologies use bacteria to make useful products or to carry out processes like treating wastewater or even clearing up pollution.

Thanks so much for your question, keep them coming!