Let’s talk about bugs, shall we?
Well, technically it’s not actually bugs I want to talk about—it’s bacteria. But if I started by saying that, you might have stopped reading by now.
But wait! It’s not the bad bacteria bugs I want to talk about. It’s the good ones. And yes, there are plenty of good ones to talk about.
You’re probably sick of hearing about the bad bugs lately, right? Like the Hantavirus that plagued the MV Hondius cruise ship while making stops halfway around the world. Or the rapid outbreak of a new Ebola strain in eastern Congo. Or the Lyme disease carried by more than 50 percent of blacklegged ticks tested in our own eastern seaboard states — in this, the tick-iest year in decades.
So, yeah, let’s not talk about those bad bugs I promised I wouldn’t talk about just before I wrote a whole paragraph talking about them.
Let’s chat about our friendly microscopic bug buddies instead.
When it comes to good bugs, recent research on bacteria suggests that our bodies are little more than high-rises for helpful microbes to live in and keep things running as they commute to and from work every day.
The “property” that you consider your body to be—the cells that make up your organs, fluids, bones, hair and tissues, with your DNA inside of them — are only a small part of what it means to be a living organism. In fact, the 30 trillion cells in your body are outnumbered by the 39 trillion bacteria that have taken up residence inside and outside of your own personal zip code.
So, in a way, you’re more bug than body.
Go ahead—Scratch. Gargle. Take a shower. It won’t make any difference. They’re in you. They’re on you. And as a matter of fact, according to scientists like Stanford’s David Relman, they are you.
Take your guts, for example. Digestion would be virtually impossible if it weren’t for the microbes living in there, getting the job done for you. Kill all the bugs, and you’re in deep trouble.
That happened to a lady I know, when a well-meaning doctor flooded her system with a massive dose of antibiotics to kill off some bad bugs inside of her, a germy street gang wilding in some dark neighborhood of her downtown tummy. The doctor cleared the punks out of town all right—along with all of the law-abiding citizens of her bowely bugtown.
The result? She was at death’s door for several months until the doctor figured out a way to lure more good bugs to her gastric ghost town. Progress was slow at first as the bacteria set up a new government and formed welcoming committees and park districts to attract other civic-minded bugs. But now she’s up and running again, after an arduous internal urban renewal.
Our microbial populations begin at birth, when the city of our body is nothing more than a shack down by the river. With our first breath, a land rush is on. Germy immigrants of every description flood into their new housing development, and our immune system screens them as they come in. If they seem harmless, we welcome them. If they’re helpful, we put them to work. But if they act a bit shady, we drive them to the city limits and tell them not to return.
After a few years, we come to know which bugs are neighbors and which are strangers, and our immune system rejects any bug that we don’t recognize — whether they’re friendly or not.
That’s why babies who are raised in antiseptic environments often develop allergies and asthma later in life. If you’ve never met the kind of bacteria that live on a cat before, there’s a good chance that you’ll sneeze them out of town if you meet them later in life. They’re not bad bugs — not really. Other people get along with those bugs just fine. It’s just that they’re not “our kind” of bug, because we’ve never met them before.
In other words, by the time we reach adulthood, we’re all microscopic racists when it comes to discriminating against bugs that we haven’t played with as children.
What’s more, scientists now tell us that there are certain bacteria associated with the foods that we prefer to eat. That might not sound too astounding — until you learn that it is the bacteria themselves that tell you what you have a taste for.
Got a craving for chocolate? That’s because you have an excess of a certain bacterium, sending out the signal to your brain. Whether you choose celery or a Snickers bar for a late-night snack depends on which bug-party shouted loudest for room service.
That’s bad news to those who like to think that we’re making all of our choices from our own free will, with no help from microscopic puppet-masters. After all, if bacteria can send us on a late-night donut run, what else can they get us to do? It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that some high-ranking politicians get elected because of buggy-headed voters.
That would explain a lot, wouldn’t it?
In any case, it seems that we’re stuck with the situation whether we like it or not. You couldn’t kill all the bacteria in your body if you tried — not without killing yourself in the process.
No, the bugs have moved into town, and they’re here to stay.
Some people have even begun to embrace the idea. Dannon Activa yogurt, for example, boasts that you are improving your digestion by downing billions of their beneficial Bifidobacterium anamalis microbes with every container.
Yum! Welcome to the neighborhood!
TR Kerth is the author of the book “Revenge of the Sardines.” Contact him at trkerth@yahoo.com
