And you believed that as a Human Being you think by yourself. ¿Huh?
A weekend science article. Presumably didactic, informative and relatively long. Which precisely because it is already the weekend, I suspect that it could captivate your attention enough as to be consumed and digested in all its dimensions over the course of these next two days. Enjoy!
«The Microbiome»
Well, ¡nope! it's not like that. People are just a Human-Bacteria Hybrid. Some sort of a walking "Superorganism" which really doesn't know where their behavior and ways of thinking really come from. And shortly we will try to explain what I mean.
Most of the cells in your body are not your own, nor are they even human. They are bacterial. From the invisible strands of fungi waiting to sprout between our toes, to the kilogram of bacterial matter in our guts, we are best viewed as walking superorganisms. A highly complex conglomerations of human cells, bacteria, fungi and viruses.
And there have already been many attempts trying to describe how these microbes interact with the body. Understanding the workings of the superorganism, they say, is crucial to the development of personalized medicine and health care in the future because individuals can have very different responses to drugs, depending on their microbial fauna.
The scientists concentrated on bacteria. More than 500 different species of bacteria exist in our bodies, making up more than 100 trillion cells. Because our bodies are made of only some several trillion human cells, we are somewhat outnumbered by the aliens. It follows that most of the genes in our bodies are from bacteria, too.
Luckily for us, the bacteria are on the whole commensal table, sharing our food but doing no real harm. This word derives from the Latin meaning to share a table for dinner. In fact, they are often beneficial. Our commensal bacteria protect us from potentially dangerous infections. They do this through close interaction with our immune systems.
We have known for some time that many diseases are influenced by a variety of factors. Including both genetics and environmental. But the concept of this superorganism could have a huge impact on our understanding of disease processes. Some scientists believe the approach could apply to research on insulin-resistance, heart disease, some cancers and perhaps even some neurological diseases.
Following the sequencing of the human genome, scientists quickly saw that the next step would be to show how human genes interact with environmental factors to influence the risk of developing disease, the aging process and drug action. But because environmental factors include the gene products of trillions of bacteria in the gut, they get very complex indeed. The information in the human genome itself, 3 billion base pairs long, does not help reduce the complexity.
The human genome provides only scant information. The discovery of how microbes in the gut can influence the body's responses to disease means that we now need more research into this area. Understanding these interactions will extend human biology and medicine well beyond the human genome and help elucidate novel types of gene-environment interactions. With this knowledge ultimately leading to new approaches to the treatment of many diseases.
Many scientists believe this "human super-organism" view and concept could have a huge impact on how we develop drugs. As individuals can have very different responses to drug metabolism and toxicity. Since these bacteria and microbes can influence things such as the pH levels in the gut and the immune response. All of which can have great positive effects on the effectiveness of drugs.
Indeed, the human genome does not carry enough information on its own to determine key elements of our own biology. Nonetheless, we certainly are not alone. We are actually populated and colonized by a huge bunch of cordial aliens that undoubtedly influence our way of thinking, feeling and behaving most of the time.
Well, unless...
Unless your body at some point in your life also remain exposed to a large number of new and bigger parasites that will also be stalking you to become part of your whole humanity. Like by instance; to the Gordian Worm, the Rabies Virus, the Ophio Cordyceps, the Plasmodium, the Giardia, the Hookworms and above all, the Toxoplasma Gondii.
The Second Brain...
Actually, scientists have determined that 90 percent of the cells in the human body are bacterial. Only five percent of the cells in your body constitute "you" in the sense of your genetic heritage. In relative scale, bacteria are much smaller than your own cells, so they account for only a small fraction of your body weight. Nearly all of these microbes are located in your gut, where they keep you working at optimal health.
¿Neurons in our Stomach? A few questions:
¿Why do we need a second brain?
A.- Well, simply, to control our digestion. Since it also works with the immune system to protect us from hostile bacteria.¿Does it use neurotransmitters?
A.- Actually yes, given that 95% of all serotonin in the body is in the gut, where it triggers digestion. Nerve cells in the gut also use serotonin to signal back to the brain. This information can train us not to eat certain foods by communicating pain, gas and other terrible feelings.¿Does the brain in our heads influence this "second brain"?
A.- Yes indeed. Butterflies in the stomach arise when the brain sends a message of anxiety to the gut. Which in turn sends messages back to the brain that it's unhappy. Although the gut can also work in isolation.
A recent article published in Nature Neuroscience reveals that when the stomach is empty, it makes a special hormone called ghrelin. Amazingly, ghrelin travels to the hippocampus portion of the brain and causes new connections to form between brain cells there. It's said that the hippocampus is the memory engine of our brain. More interestingly, when lab animals are injected with extra ghrelin, their learning ability and memory improved.
On other hand. It's well known young kids are forever sticking things in their mouths, but there's a reason for that. A study in the New England Journal of Medicine indicates that early exposure to dirt, dust and bacteria actually helps childrens immune systems develop more effectively.
This concept has been coined as "the hygiene hypothesis" which is a study that concluded that children who grew up on farms had fewer allergies than their counterparts in urban areas. Conversely, health studies have shown that mothers who kept their children in antiseptic environments, were actually compromising their health. Children need to be exposed to the natural environment of threats and benefactors so their immune systems can learn to distinguish between the two.
And speaking of mothers. Last but not least. One last audiovisual reflection to close this post.
«Mitochondrial DNA»
«««-$-»»»
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Indeed, the subject has hardly been touched on.
We really do not realize how profoundly our consciousness is a communal, multi-species event. We experience life as a lumbering megafauna... Well, maybe we don't feel very mega, as there are bigger creatures than us, but we are megafauna, defined as creatures over ~20 kilos. However, as you point out, we are actually an ecosystem comprised of hundreds of species all crammed into our corpus, and as the intelligent (more or less) manager of our estate, our consciousness is availed the input from our co-conspirators in our success and felicity, the trillions of non-human participants in our macro-organism.
It would be very nice indeed were medicine to come to some sort of terms with our multispeciel nature, because presently our use of biocides nukes our ecosystems pretty hard. It's possible that infections are entirely the result of biocides having knocked out beneficial bacteria, wiping out whole species, and even families of species, from our ecosystem, leaving niches that pathogens can occupy instead of commensal and mutualist organisms that do us good.
It remains almost completely unknown how much our co-inhabitants affect our consciousness. It is known that at least some of our gut fauna do participate in our decisions. We just don't know how to even test for such effects or affects in most of the ways that can happen. This has even spiritual implications, but I'll leave that for folks to reckon with on their own.
Thanks!