We have heard quite a bit about it in the news, our microbiome that is. It is sort of a curious fact that such a large amount of microbial DNA can be found in our bodies. There is a large amount of bacteria in our bodies, in fact most of the bacteria not just harmless, it is actually beneficial to us. Even more interesting is that in some places a type of bacteria can be harmless, but found elsewhere in our body it can be quite harmful, take E. Coli as an example. E. Coli is naturally found in our intestines, in fact it is important in helping our bodies to break down food, and yet certain strains of E. Coli are able to get into our blood streams and cause illness.

The gut microbiome has recently come under intense scrutiny, as we are beginning to realize its importance in human health. It turns out that using antibiotics, especially broad spectrum antibiotics, can cause large changes in the populations of gut bacteria. This is not a good thing for human health, it is akin to removing termites by cutting out wooden beams which are important to the houses structure. Sure you get rid of one problem, but you create a larger one.

Your body is sensitive to these bacterial communities, and causing even a small change to one community can cause large changes to the amounts of other communities, which can have large effects on our health and our ability to fend off disease.

Recently there has been efforts to improve the bodies ability to fight off an infection caused by C. Difficile. This bacteria is very difficult to deal with (hence the name) and is not easily controlled with antibiotics, in some cases antibiotics actually cause an increase in the C. Difficile levels due to the removal of its competitors. Yet a therapy has been developed called Fecal Microbiota Transplant, which has had some success in combating C. Difficile. Essentially what is done is the microbiota from a healthy person is transplanted into the ill individual and when it works properly, after some time healthy levels of microbiota are restored in the ill person causing the infection to recede. Work is being done to help improve the effectiveness of this treatment (since until recently no one seemed to be able to show why it worked in some people and not in others).

Now we are beginning to realize that our microbiome may be important in other areas as well, beyond just in the gut. Recently it has been discovered that certain levels of bacteria where found in large amounts when women have breast cancer, whereas high levels of different bacteria were found in women who did not have breast cancer. Of course they have yet to prove that these bacteria actually played a role in causing breast cancer (they may not be the cause but rather a symptom) but it still is an important find, perhaps for instance, this could be an early indicator of breast cancer.

We are just learning how important the balance of microbes in our bodies really are. Perhaps there a far more implications to human health than we have even realized. We may even be able to rethink the way we combat disease and even cancer. The possibilities are numerous!