According to scientists, more than half of your body is not human.

Only 43% of the total number of cells in the body are human. The remainder is tiny colonists.

Understanding our Microbiome, which is the hidden half of ourselves, is revolutionising how we think about diseases like allergies and Parkinson’s.

Even what it means to be “human” is being questioned in this field, which is inspiring the development of new, cutting-edge treatments.

According to a Prof., at the head  Institute’s department of microbiome science, “Your body is not just you. They are essential to your health.

No matter how thoroughly you wash your body, microscopic creatures are almost always present.

Included in this are bacteria, viruses, fungi, and archaea (organisms originally misclassified as bacteria). The majority of this microscopic life is found in the oxygen-starved, murky depths of our bowels.

You are more of a microbe than a human, Our cells were initially thought to be ten to one in excess.

It explains, “That’s been refined much closer to one-to-one, so the current estimate is that, if you count up all the cells, you’re about 43 per cent human.”

However, our genetic disadvantage is even greater.

There are 20,000 genes, or genetic instructions, that make up the human genome, the complete set of genetic instructions for an individual.

However, when you total up all the genes in our microbiome, you find that there are between two and 20 million microbial genes.

Caltech microbiologist makes the following claim: “We don’t have just one genome; the genes of our microbiome essentially represent a second genome that enhances the activity of our own.

“I believe that the combination of our own DNA and the DNA of our gut microbes is what makes us human.”

It would be naive to believe that the amount of microbial material we carry around will not interact with or affect our bodies in any way.

The function of the microbiome in digestion, immune system control, disease prevention, and vitamin production is now being rapidly understood by science.

We’re discovering ways that these tiny creatures completely transform our health in ways that we had never imagined before.

It introduces a fresh perspective on the microbial world. Up until now, most of our interactions with microbes have been hostile.

Microbial battleground

Weapons used to combat diseases like smallpox, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, or MRSA includes antibiotics and vaccines.

That has been beneficial and has saved a lot of lives.

However, some researchers worry that our war against the bad guys has severely damaged our “good bacteria.”

“We have done a great job eradicating infectious diseases over the past 50 years.

“However, autoimmune disorders and allergies have increased dramatically and horrifyingly.

Understanding how changes in the microbiome that occurred as a result of our success in combating pathogens have now contributed to a whole new set of diseases that we have to deal with is where work on the microbiome comes in.

Diseases like Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Parkinson’s, the effectiveness of cancer treatments, even depression and autism, are all being linked to the microbiome.

Another one is being overweight. Family history and lifestyle choices undoubtedly have an impact, but what about the bacteria in your gut?

This is where things might become unclear.

Your risk of becoming obese and the kinds of microbes that thrive in your digestive tract will both be impacted by a diet heavy in hamburgers and chocolate.

How can you tell if an unhealthy combination of bacteria is metabolising your food in a way that causes obesity?

Mice that were born in the cleanest possible environment were used in experiments

Microbes have never existed there or on them.

We were able to demonstrate that mice can be made thinner or fatter depending on whose microbiome they received if lean and obese humans’ faeces are used to transplant bacteria into mice.

The mice also lost weight when they were supplemented with lean bacteria.

This is truly amazing, but the question now is whether it can be understood by humans.

That microbes might be a new type of medicine is the field’s main hope. It’s referred to as using “bugs as drugs.”

Goldmine of information

The idea is to reintroduce any missing bugs that might exist in a diseased state, for instance.

Repairing a person’s microbiome “can actually lead to remission,” according to growing research, in conditions like ulcerative colitis, a type of inflammatory bowel disease.

“I think for a lot of the diseases we study, it’s going to be defined mixtures of bugs, maybe ten or fifteen that are going into a patient,” he continued.

Although microbial medicine is still in its infancy, some researchers believe that in the near future, tracking our microbiome on a daily basis will yield a brown goldmine of knowledge about our health.

It’s astounding to consider that each teaspoon of your stool contains more information in the DNA of those microbes than a tonne of DVDs could possibly store.

“At the moment, whenever you take one of those data dumps, to put it another way, you’re just flushing that information away.

“One of our future goals is to have toilets that instantly read your direction after you flush, letting you know whether you’re going in the right or wrong direction.

“That, in my opinion, will really transform.”

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