During pregnancy, a person’s body undergoes a lot of changes – hormone fluctuations, morning sickness, loosening joints and ligaments, and well, the obvious: growing a mini human. As a microbiologist, I’ve wondered about the microbiome. What changes have occurred in the vaginal microbiome? What do these changes mean? And can the vaginal microbiome be predictive…
Category: Human Microbiome
Are we more bacteria than human? That depends when you last pooped
For decades, the notion that bacteria living on our bodies outnumbered human cells 10 to 1 was popular among microbiologists and the public. Turns out, this estimation is wrong. In 2016, Ron Sender, Shai Fuchs, and Ron Milo from the Weizmann Institute examined the origins of this estimation and found that the ratio is actually…
Seaweed and the Gut Microbiome: You are What You Eat
Our intestine is home to three pounds of bacteria. We feed them and they feed us. They help us break down proteins, lipids, and carbohydrates from our food into nutrients that we can then absorb. Without them, we would not reap the benefits of the many foods we consume. As an example, gut microbes contain…
Donating Your Poop for Science – Microbiome Studies
By Kanika Khanna In this journey called life, we are not alone. We are inhabited by around 39 trillion microbial cells that account for ~57% of all cells in our body, making us half human and half microbes. This consortium of microbial species (including bacteria, fungi, viruses, and archaea) is referred to as the ‘human…
Our early life microbiome may be more resilient than once believed
“We are inhabited by as many as ten thousand bacterial species… Together, they are referred to as our microbiome — and they play such a crucial role in our lives that scientists like Blaser have begun to reconsider what it means to be human.” ― Michael Specter A couple weeks ago, I attended the Boston…