Thursday, September 6, 2012

One for all, and all for one

The old saying one for all, and all for one takes on a deeper meaning in a story in The Economist. Me, myself, us argues that a human is much more than simply a man or a woman: we are complex beings inhabited by substantial numbers of microorganisms essential to our survival, known collectively as the microbiome. According to the article, "[a] healthy adult human harbours some 100 trillion bacteria in his gut alone. That is ten times as many bacterial cells as he has cells descended from the sperm and egg of his parents."

Understanding the human as a complex, multi-organism being may open the way for very different ways of approaching medicine and human health. Dealing with disease may turn out to be a matter of better managing the balance of organisms that comprise any given individual. According to the Canadian Microbiome Initiative, "microbes play an important role in human health, not just as pathogens, or as benign communities that keep pathogens at bay, but also in association with a number of chronic health conditions including gastrointestinal diseases, obesity, autoimmune diseases, diabetes, cancer, arthritis, asthma and cardiovascular disease."

For a slightly tongue-in-cheek look at what a microbiome-positive world might look like, see Tuberculosis bacteria join UN by microbiologist and science fiction writer, Joan Slonczewski.