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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 06/03/2006 : 06:56:22
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Not only are we not alone, but it can be argued that we are not the overseers our destinies, nor even our day-to-day lives. It might further be argued that we are a part of a colonial organism and not necessarily the dominant species in it. We are symbiotes..... quote:
Gene experts say we are not entirely human
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - We may not be entirely human, gene experts said on Thursday after studying the DNA of hundreds of different kinds of bacteria in the human gut.
Bacteria are so important to key functions such as digestion and the immune system that we may be truly symbiotic organisms -- relying on one another for life itself, the scientists write in Friday's issue of the journal Science.
Their findings suggest that studying bacteria native to our bodies may provide important clues to disease, nutrition, obesity and how well drugs will work in individuals, said the team at The Institute for Genomic Research, commonly known as TIGR, in Maryland.
"We are somehow like an amalgam, a mix of bacteria and human cells. There are some estimates that say 90 percent of the cells on our body are actually bacteria," Steven Gill, a molecular biologist formerly at TIGR and now at the State University of New York in Buffalo, said in a telephone interview.
"We're entirely dependent on this microbial population for our well-being. A shift within this population, often leading to the absence or presence of beneficial microbes, can trigger defects in metabolism and development of diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease."
Scientists have long known that at least 50 percent of human faeces, and often more, is made up of bacteria from the gut. Bacteria start to colonise the intestines and colon shortly after birth, and adults carry up to 100 trillion microbes, representing more than 1,000 different
The meek shall not inherit the earth. Bacteria will, and I, for one, salute our all powerful and indomitable masters.....
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
 Posted - 06/03/2006 : 14:17:27 [Permalink]
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Great reference, Filthy!
On a related note, not only are our guts filled with beneficial, free-ranging bacteria, our very cells are loaded with various mitochondrial organs that have their own genetics separate from our nuclear DNA, and which are passed down through the generations exclusively through our mothers' line.
These mitochondria are thought to be descended from captured and/or parasitic bacteria. In the circus of our life, the mitochondria have been setting up their carny sideshow for billions of years, next to the evolutionary Big Top of our nuclear DNA. Each branch of this circus relies on the other.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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dv82matt
SFN Regular
760 Posts |
Posted - 06/03/2006 : 18:33:33 [Permalink]
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Interesting stuff. I don't think it's anything new. One issue I have with the article is that it's misleading to say we are not entirely human just because we are in a symbiotic relationship.
I'm also not completely convinced of our utter dependance on the gut bacteria. From the article:
quote:
"We're entirely dependent on this microbial population for our well-being. A shift within this population, often leading to the absence or presence of beneficial microbes, can trigger defects in metabolism and development of diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease."
This strikes me as a vacuous argument. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 06/03/2006 : 19:01:43 [Permalink]
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Are "defects in metabolism" and "diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease" associated with long-term, broad-spectrum oral antibiotic use? If yes, then he might have a point. I don't recall ever hearing such things, and we had some people on long-term oral antibiotics in the psoriasis support group due to their use of powerful immune suppressants.
The only time I'm aware that gut microbes are somewhat important is during the first weeks/months after birth, when some of them synthesize some B vitamins for a neonate, B vitamins that (if I remember correctly) aren't carried in breast milk.
Did David Vetter have any of those metabolic/bowel problems? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 06/03/2006 : 19:18:49 [Permalink]
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My main take on beneficial gut biota is that these bacteria selfishly fight off interloping species, some of which can make us very sick. That's one reason why it's helpful, when getting off antibiotic treatment for an acute illness, to consume foods such as live-culture yogurt, to help replenish friendly -- or at least non-hostile -- bacteria.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 06/03/2006 : 19:43:57 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.
Are "defects in metabolism" and "diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease" associated with long-term, broad-spectrum oral antibiotic use? If yes, then he might have a point. I don't recall ever hearing such things, and we had some people on long-term oral antibiotics in the psoriasis support group due to their use of powerful immune suppressants.
I suspect he meant Irritable Bowel Syndrome, which is a disease unheard of in developing nations. Current research tends to support the hypothesis that the condition is caused by a normally beneficial bacteria allowing to breed unchecked. I remember in one article (that I can no longer find) where all symptoms of irritable bowel vanished when scientists had the patients ingest tapeworm eggs or something equally messed up. But the basic idea was that overly-hygienic American and European lifestyles are leading to an unbalancing of our internal bacterial ecosystems, which may be as equally important to our health as our external one. I don't know, it didn't really seem like all that crazy an idea to me.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 06/03/2006 19:46:49 |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 06/05/2006 : 12:47:36 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.
Are "defects in metabolism" and "diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease" associated with long-term, broad-spectrum oral antibiotic use? If yes, then he might have a point. I don't recall ever hearing such things, and we had some people on long-term oral antibiotics in the psoriasis support group due to their use of powerful immune suppressants.
The only time I'm aware that gut microbes are somewhat important is during the first weeks/months after birth, when some of them synthesize some B vitamins for a neonate, B vitamins that (if I remember correctly) aren't carried in breast milk.
Did David Vetter have any of those metabolic/bowel problems?
Quite the opposite with some specific esceptions.
The Role of Antibiotics in Inflammatory Bowel Disease.quote:
clinical observations and controlled trials, leads to the conclusion that antibiotics have a role as primary therapy in active uncomplicated CD.....Antibiotics should not be routinely used for mild to moderately ill patients with UC, although a trial of ciprofloxacin is not unreasonable prior to colectomy for otherwise refractory patients.
The use of antibiotics put these patients at risk for clostridium superinfection so there are other risks. The gut bacteria are important. That is no secret.
In that case you are talking about Antibiotic associated IBD [which] can occur from therapy with broad spectrum antibiotics leading to overgrowth of Clostridium difficile or other organisms such as Candida.
Rotovirus vaccine was associated with infant intussusception.
Intussusception among infants given an oral rotavirus vaccine.
Erythromycin was associated with pyloric stenosis among newborns. I believe a few other antibiotics have been implicated in similar side effects related to the gut. quote:
Hypertrophy of the pylorus leading to gastric obstruction, (i.e. infantile hypertrophic pyloric stenosis or IHPS), is the most common indication for neonatal abdominal surgery. In 1999, it was noted that there was a cluster of IHPS following the prophylaxis with erythromycin of newborns exposed to pertussis.
Remember too, the gut is sterile in utero.
As to defects in metabolism, I'd need something more specific to know what to comment on. Most of the autoimmune diseases and other diseases with unknown etiologies have had very thorough epidemiological investigations. If antibiotics were causing anything as suggested I would think we'd have seen evidence by now. |
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bort
New Member
USA
4 Posts |
Posted - 06/20/2006 : 21:55:20 [Permalink]
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| I am not sure if it is mentioned in the article, but I always think it is weird that the number of bacteria we have in our gut greatly outnumbers the number of our cells. So if you go by number alone, we are more bacteria than human. |
"You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion." - most likely L.Ron Hubbard |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2006 : 10:27:59 [Permalink]
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| If you were to take all the bacteria and cover the Earth it would make a film 10 meters thick. If you took all the gold ever mined it would only be a 15 meter cube. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2006 : 10:49:11 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by BigPapaSmurf
If you were to take all the bacteria and cover the Earth it would make a film 10 meters thick. If you took all the gold ever mined it would only be a 15 meter cube.
That's why a ring made of gold is worth more than a ring made from bacteria... |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2006 : 13:24:11 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by BigPapaSmurf
If you were to take all the bacteria and cover the Earth it would make a film 10 meters thick.
Or a cube over 172 kilometers on a side.
For the metric-impaired:- Gold - 49-foot cube,
- Bacteria - 107-mile cube
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- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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JohnOAS
SFN Regular
Australia
800 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2006 : 21:48:42 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by BigPapaSmurf
If you were to take all the bacteria and cover the Earth it would make a film 10 meters thick. If you took all the gold ever mined it would only be a 15 meter cube.
That figure for gold seemed way too small to me, so I checked, and wouldn't you know it, I was wrong!
Gold has a density of 19.3 grams per cubic centimetre. According to the wikpedia article, and the world gold council, the estimate for all of the gold ever mined was, in 2001, 145 000 tonnes.
We therefore have 145 x 10^6 kg of the stuff.
A density of 19.3 x 10^3 kg/m^3
Giving us 7512 cubic metres, which is a cube with a side length of 19.6 metres.
Of course, if you use an American tonne (damn imperialists!) you get 18.9 metres along the cube edge. I don't know where the 15 comes from, but in terms of an order of magnitude calculation, it's near enough.
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John's just this guy, you know. |
| Edited by - JohnOAS on 06/21/2006 21:53:57 |
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