2024-09-04 13:59:00
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When the American poet Walt Whitman wrote “I am many, I have many” in his poem. “I sing to myself”, included in his extraordinary genital grass (1855), few can imagine the degree of completeness with which it has been described. In the mouth, on the skin, on the mucous membranes,But above all, in the gut, 100 billion microbes of 1,000 different species live. This means that in our body there are about ten times more foreign cells than our own. We are human. And the combination of bacteria, just like what happened to the rest of the animals on Earth, is unique to each of us, indelible, and identifies us as if it were a second fingerprint. Although it is made up of millions of living things, it works together as a single organ, like the liver or the heart.
Increasing the presence of good bacteria in the body can improve health and even reverse certain changes
In contrast, although we have been with the group of microorganisms for millions of years, only in the last two decades have we begun to learn what important functions for human life are performed, especially by those who live in the pit, which it is called the microbiota. intestine We have discovered that it helps us not only to eat food and extract energy, but also to remove toxins, produce vitamins and train our immune system. In fact, the work it does is so important that when the environment of microbes changes, our health problems begin: imbalances in its composition can lead to autoimmune diseases, such as asthma or allergies; is a risk factor for others such as obesity, diabetes and cancer, and also affects the effectiveness of pharmaceutical treatments. Recent studies suggest that a disturbed microbiota is also involved in neurological conditions such as Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis, autism or depression. And scientists believe that In the not-too-distant future we will sequence the genes of the community of microorganisms to design personalized medical treatments.
A WORLD WITHOUT MIROBEES?
That we are full of germs was discovered by a Dutch microscope manufacturer named Anton van Leeuwenhoek, who is considered the father of microbiology. This inventor, at the end of the 17th century, took a sample of his own dental plaque and observed it under one of the lenses he had made. This is how he saw a lot of living things that he called animals, and he correctly estimated that there were more of these living things in his mouth than the people living in the Netherlands.
Two centuries later, Louis Pasteur, Robert Koch and Joseph Lister focused on studying the ability of organisms to cause disease, even though most organisms are neither harmful nor beneficial. The idea that microbes cause health problems and have to be eradicated has become entrenched in the collective imagination. until a series of experiments in the mid-20th century in the United States showed the opposite “The dream was to live without bacteria,” said Francisco Guarner, researcher at the Val d’Hebron Research Institute (VHIR) -. They raised rats in completely unprotected environments, but soon they found that the animals did not grow, developed many allergies, became sick, were less social, and died easily. “They show, in short, that microorganisms are essential for life.” At the turn of the century, powerful new tools from genetics and genetic sequencing allowed microbiologists to begin analyzing this microbial mess. and to shed light on its great complexity: in addition to the fact that each person has a unique combination of microorganisms, he adds that this is variable and varies depending on age, diet, lifestyle habits and even environment.
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Our symbiotic relationship with microbes begins in the womb, when some of the mother’s bacteria enter the placenta and reach the fetus. During birth, millions of microbes in the womb begin to colonize the baby. In the case of children born by cesarean section, it has been found that the bacteria on the skin and those in the operating room are first settled in their intestines. But it is, above all, breastfeeding that is most important to the formation of the intestinal microbiota of the newborn; Through milk, the mother not only provides beneficial bacteria to the baby, such as bifidobacteria, but also sugars that the baby cannot digest and whose job is to eat directly the bacterial environment that starts.
All these microorganisms are inside the intestine, the surrounding wall, the epithelial mucosa, which prevents them from jumping into the blood.
And it is there, at the control point, where the immune system can begin to learn to distinguish pathogenic elements from friendly elements. Not surprisingly, the gut is an organ that is responsible for 75% of the body’s immune system. The first years of life are very important for the training of the immune system. Changes in the structure of the intestinal microbiota during this period are consistent with the subsequent development of autoimmune diseases, such as asthma, allergies or celiac disease, as well as with the predisposition to suffer from metabolic diseases.
Martin J. Blaser, a microbiologist at the New York University School of Medicine (USA), has studied how antibiotics affect the microbiota in childhood and has discovered that the amount of these drugs that children take has an effect on the appearance in the elderly of diseases such as. inflammatory bowel disease, asthma and obesity. “Not by using antibiotics, because they are a very effective tool to fight certain infections, but by doing so only when necessary, since they have many consequences,” this scientist argued.
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Your presence may affect treatments
That the intestinal microbiota plays an important role in the appearance of tumors has been known since, in 2012, Eiji Hara, a scientist at the Japan Cancer Research Association, discovered that the relationship between obesity and an increased risk of cancer has much to do with the microorganisms that fill the colon. Later, Robert Schwabe, a gastroenterologist at Columbia University (USA), discovered that Intestinal microbes interact with liver cell receptors and this is one of the main factors that lead to the development of liver tumors. Some microorganisms have also been shown to be involved in colon cancer. Moreover, it has recently been discovered that the microbial community has the ability to modulate the responses of
organism to the immune system, which will explain why between 60 and 70% of patients do not respond to this type of treatment and will open the door to treating the microbiota to restore and thus improve the effectiveness of this therapy. Furthermore, another recent study has shown that the more diverse and balanced the intestinal microbiota, the greater the probability of success of immunotherapy.
THE UNSEEN MOUNTAIN BETWEEN THE MIND AND THE INTELLECT
One of the most exciting areas of microbiota research is that which focuses on the brain-gut situation. And the truth is that both bodies talk to each other constantly. The gut, for example, sends information to the brain about what we eat, tells us if we have taken in the necessary nutrients to stay healthy or alerts if the immune system is fighting a pathogen. These messages travel through the vagus nerve, a type of pathway that directly connects the two parts of the body. And chemical substances are exchanged, such as neurotransmitters (serotonin, dopamine, GABA). It’s no coincidence that the gut is home to hundreds of millions of neurons. Scientists have been learning about this complex exchange of information over the past decade, and the results are changing the way we understand and treat certain diseases.
Czech Premysl Bercik is a leading researcher in neurogastroenterology. At McMaster University in Canada, it has been shown in mice how the gut microbiota is able to regulate emotional state. In a pioneering study, they subjected rat pups to early stress. They found that when the rodents lacked the microbiota, stress did not leave them with psychological consequences. On the other hand, those who have microbiota develop depressive behavior. “We showed that bacteria play an important role in the production of anxiety and depression,” explains Bercik. “Parkinson’s also seems to be linked to abnormalities in this area of intestinal bacteria,” points out Ted Dinan, a psychiatrist at University College Cork (Ireland), who is convinced that it is very likely that the disease starts in the colon when a poison manages to do it. crosses the colon barrier and reaches the brain.
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ADVANCED HUMAN MEDICINE
The gut microbiota will represent, experts say, a paradigm shift in personalized medicine. Ignacio López-Goñi, professor of microbiology says: “Twenty years from now, when you go to the doctor, he will also consider the data from your microbiota, what composition it has and how it can affect a treatment or diagnosis,” University of Navarra and author of Microbiota. The microbes in your body.
therefore, In the near future, by studying many people who live in us, knowing more about the composition and its content, whether it is balanced or not, we will be able to diagnose diseases and design intelligent cocktails of insects disease, it is good for each person. We will, perhaps, be able to rule over the multitude of people who live with us, knowing that we have to take care of them so that they, well, protect us.
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