The Microbiome

Research conducted over the past few years has revealed the human microbiome to be more and more important. But what is the microbiome? It may be a little alarming to learn that there are far more microbial cells in your body than there are human cells. However, this microbial “invasion” is nothing to worry about. In fact, the microbiome represents an essential part of human health. Though these microbes, including bacteria, protozoa, fungi, and even viruses, have invaded and colonized our bodies, in normal conditions, most do not do us any harm, and many actually help and protect us from other pathogenic microbes. They do this in a variety of ways including using up the resources “bad” bacteria need to flourish, helping us digest food that we cannot digest ourselves, and even fighting off pathogens that make their way into our systems. However, the microbiome must be in good health to provide people with these benefits. A few things that could throw off someone’s microbiome are taking antibiotics, getting sick, certain unhealthy habits, and more. When the balance of the microbiome is disturbed, some kinds of bacteria that normally don’t affect us start to take over, causing different kinds of illness and disease. However, a healthy microbiome can and will help its host in all kinds of ways.

It has been found over and over that microbes in one part of the body can have significant effects on totally different parts of the body. For example, the bacteria in your gut can impact your mood and brain function, and have even been linked to the autism. This study examined autistic children with frequent gastrointestinal and digestive problems and aimed to see how manipulating their gut microbial composition could impact both conditions. It was found that not only did altering the gut microbiome significantly relieve the gastrointestinal issues, but it was even found to reduce autistic behaviors. Although this news is exciting and implicates a new kind of treatment for autistic patients, it is not totally surprising that a change in microbiome might have this effect on people. It has been well documented that the microbes that live within us affect our personality and mood, as is mentioned in the same article, so it follows that altering the microbiome of autistic patients would impact their behavior as well. The studies found that after the alteration of their microbiomes, the behavior of nearly half the subjects no longer qualified as autistic based on autism scale tests. This example shows just one of the many ways our microbiomes affect our health.

Another study shows that the presence of certain bacterial strains in someone’s microbiome can lessen the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. This bacteria prevents the formation of the misfolding of proteins that cause the disease. Although scientists still have not found out what causes the proteins to misfold in this way and have been unable to find a cure, they have found, once again, that microbiome composition plays an important role in the way the disease behaves. The presence of one strain of bacteria in the gut has effects that reach all the way up to the brain. Although this is one of the first studies of this specific microbial interaction, scientists emphasize that it will not be the last. They have found yet another important implication for the treatment of disease through the alteration of the microbiome.