Closer Look at Human Ecosystem

Multitude of microbes naturally inhabit our body. Their presence has a tremendous impact on both our health and illness. These living organisms are native residents of our internal ecosystem, but yet we don't know them that well.Why is that so? Well, mainly because these bacteria don't grow outside their host, us humans. Therefore, It's difficult to research and get to know them better.
Luckily, there was a remarkable evolvement in the abilities of modern microbiology to characterize microbes.Nowadays, one doesn't have to grow bacteria in the Petri dish to study it. New computational tools allow researchers to study microbiome (microbial ecosystem) by isolating and sequencing bacterial DNA.
One of such projects is known as Human Microbiome Project (HMP) focuses on characterizing human ecosystem. Researchers in the HMP are sampling and analyzing the genome of microbes from five sites on the human body: nasal passages, oral cavities, skin, gastrointestinal tract, and urogenital tract. This project and other studies like it are helping to unveil the ways in which these essential organisms influence our lives.
The results of these studies reveal that many microbial colonies are specific for certain body sites. Moreover, the microbiome is ever changing during our lifetime. A number of recent reports showed that microbiome of pregnant women goes through complete transformation during pregnancy. Each trimester has its own unique microbiome signature.
Amazingly, one of the dominant species in the vagina of pregnant woman is Lactobacillus johnsonii. This microbe is naturally found in the gut and helps us to digest milk. The researchers speculate that pregnancy encourages the bacteria to grow. And, during delivery, a baby might ingest some of the bacteria. This first exposure is what would eventually prepare the baby to digest breast milk.
The baby's ecosystem continues to grow during breast-feeding. Evidently, women's milk contains up to 600 species of bacteria. These healthy bacteria have a tremendously significant role in tutoring child's developing immune system. Under microbiome guidance, naive immune cells learn how to recognize self versus foreign stimuli. This ability allows our body to appropriately react to invading pathogens while controlling autoimmune response.
As some of you may have experienced personally, in the recent years, there was a significant increase in the prevalence of autoimmune conditions such as eczema, asthma, irritable bowel syndrome etc.Reduced exposure to microbes early in life is suggested to be one of the main mechanisms to account for this rise, commonly referred to as the "hygiene hypothesis". Our diet, high level of antibiotic use, and improved hygiene have an impact on reduction of microbial exposure. Research has suggested that children who take high doses of antibiotics are in greater risk of developing allergies and asthma.
So, what can we do to help these friendly microbes to survive? We can start by taking care of our gut bacteria. By avoiding consumption of refined sugars and processed food, we would significantly reduce stomach irritation. By taking probiotics especially when on antibiotic treatment and afterwards. Remember, that antibiotics kill "good" bacteria as well and it has to be replenished. Treatment of some autoimmune conditions with probiotics has shown some promising but also controversial results. But, because some of these results might be due to lack of proper study design, it is worth to give our allies a chance.

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