Science for Authors: The Bugs You Live With--you and your microbiome #amwriting

By: Meradeth Houston on 4:00 AM

Okay, so I've been doing a whole lot of reading lately as some of my research has been going in a new direction that I'm super excited about. I won't go into much detail about that boring mess (other than it deals with a whole crap load of really old...poop--yep, you read that right...), but I have been really enjoying spending time researching the little bugs that live on and in all of us. Okay, not actually bugs, but bacteria and prokaryotes (mostly Archaea) that exist on our skin, in our mouths, and in our gut. These organism are collectively known as our microbiome. While that may make you want to take a bath, they're actually super important to our survival.

So, if you're working with a story that deals with, say, living on a spacecraft, for example, it might be cool to bring in some science about how people maintain a healthy bacterial colony--because we're realizing that that's super important!

A few cool facts:

• We have ~10^14 bacterial cells in our body
• There are ~10^13 human cells in our body--that's an order of magnitude difference! Our body is technically more bacteria than us
• These cells make up ~2% of our body mass--about like our brain or liver
• There are ~3,300,000 genes in these bacteria. Humans only have ~22, 000

So, basically, that's a whole lot. And these little guys are SUPER important. We're only scratching the surface of all they do, but we know they're super important in these things:

• Digestion and metabolism of what you eat
• Vitamin production
• Immune system education and maintenace
• Restrict growth of pathogens through resource outcompetition
• Metabolize xenobiotics (foreign substances)
• Provide resistance to tumor/cancer causing agents

So, kind of some amazingly important stuff. And when things are out of whack, we know that some issues that can arise are:

• In the gut: Obesity, Type II Diabetes, Irritable Bowel, Colon Cancer
• In the mouth: Periodontal disease, Dental decay
• And even mood: Anxiety, Autism, Depression

The last one there is crazy to me--how something so small, living in or on you, can alter your mood or state of mind. Nuts! But the evidence is becoming overwhelming that they're really incredibly important. Having a healthy microbiome is super important, and being too clean can actually lead to issues. The Hygiene Hypothesis is a really good example--too few bugs and our immune system doesn't develop correctly, leading to things like asthma and type I diabetes (among many possible others). So, those little bugs on you are actually a good thing!

There may actually be something to this! Getting the right bacteria in and on us from being outside is important!

But who now feels a little creepy-crawly? ;)