Leading biologist calls for hospitals to get dirty again, saying sterilizing our rich microbial ecosystems has done more harm than good. He came to this conclusion after discovering that dolphins were much healthier if their aquarium water was “dirty”.
When Dr. Jack Gilbert began studying dolphins in 2014, he made a life-changing discovery: the “dirtier” the aquarium water, the healthier the dolphins. This observation changed his view of everything he thought he knew about the bacteria and other microbes that the modern world is so afraid of. “We’ve seen the value of increasing microbial diversity in the home,” Gilbert told the New York Post.
According to Gilbert, who is associate director of the Institute of Genomics and Systems Biology at Argonne National Laboratory, the lack of a rich microbial ecosystem, especially in our hospitals, could be causing more harm than good. , which would lead to drug-resistant superbugs and infectious viruses.
“There are more bacteria in your gut than there are stars in our galaxy…and of those, less than 100 species of bacteria compromise our health,” Gilbert said in the book. I Contain Multitudes by science writer Ed Yong.
Studies continue to prove that the best way to allow these few invasive species to exploit our bodies is to wipe out the diverse abundance of beneficial species that co-exist harmoniously and help us maintain homeostasis. Overuse of antibiotics and antibacterial cleansers disrupts this healthy balance of protective microbes in our bodies and wider environments. That’s why diversity, not sterility, should be our goal when it comes to microorganisms, says Gilbert.
Even though we can’t see them, we can’t underestimate the importance of microbes, Yong asserts in his book:
“Microbes have spent 90% longer on Earth than we have, evolving invisibly for millions of years. Instead of evolving alongside them, we have joined forces with them in what scientists call co-development. We cannot live without the microbes we harbor.”
Not only can we not live without them, but we are pretty much like them! More than 99% of the genetic material of our body is bacterial, underlines Rob Knight, founder of the American project Gut Project.
Microbes, which replace dying and damaged cells, help our bodies absorb and store nutrients and fats and even impact the shape of our organs. They are the foundation of our immune system, preventing “invaders” from entering our body and helping it learn to live with viral diseases that enter our bloodstream.
Our gut flora is responsible for digesting our food and regulating our mood and behavior. It determines how often we get mosquito bites, what painkillers are toxic to our liver, what drugs will work on our heart and maybe even our sexual attraction, Knight says.
As further proof that we need to live “dirtier” lives, the “miracle” cure for Clostridioides difficile (a bacteria that causes diarrhea and colitis) has been found in a surprising place – the toilet! Fecal transplants, where stool from healthy donors is placed inside the gastrointestinal tract of people with Clostridioides difficile, restore a healthy balance of bacteria in the gut. This now comes in tablet form.
“In 2008, a group of villagers believed to have spent 11,000 years in isolation were spotted in a remote part of the Amazon rainforest,” reports the New York Post. “Scientists have found that thousands of years of isolation have left them with the most diverse microbiomes they have ever seen. They concluded that their microbial diversity was further evidence that the battles waged against germs in the industrialized world had worked a little too well. Those of us who live in modern cities and towns have destroyed so much of the healthy microscopic life that belonged to our bodies, that our own microbiomes have become relatively deficient in it.”
And There you go. Maybe instead of scrubbing ourselves with soap and water – or, unfortunately, chemical hand sanitizer – we should do as the hunter-gatherers do and start washing our hands in the guts. rich in microbes from dead animals ????