We humans have been explorers & nomads for a long period of time. We have always been looking to explore different places & civilizations but never felt a need to explore the huge civilization & ecosystem living within us- ecosystem of micro biomes living inside & on us.
Microbiome is similar to us in many ways – they grow like we do taking our foods as fuel to get energy, they interact the way we do, they speak different languages as we do.
During million years of evolution inside our body, they have found a fascinating way to communicate with us- they have shaped our biology & understand our strengths & weaknesses.
Since our body cannot perform all biological functions, we have outsourced many of our biological functions to these tenants living inside our gut.
How these single cell microorganisms- bacteria, yeast, mold, viruses & fungi rented out space inside our body?
These tiny guys & gals have been around on this earth for billions of years & humans have been around for about 100,000 years. So how did humans get created?
One fine day all these organisms got together- they were living in some desert or rainforest may be Africa & discussed- one of these organisms told others- we are bored of living in this small place- let us find a habitat somewhere else- so one of them told what if we create something where trillions of us can live inside it & all we have to do is keep this thing healthy, we gonna make them crave for what we want, they gonna find food for us, they gonna poop everywhere, spread us around & we gonna take over this world- they created humans
And as we humans started evolving they started to worry! One of them asked their master- what if humans got smarter than us? Master told not to worry, right inside their cell- mitochondria- they are our brother- it is one of the ancient bacteria. This is energy powerhouse – we control this mitochondria,- we turn the energy off- they die.
What about the brain?
The microbe answered, we live in the gut & we direct the brain what to do by communicating with it through the vagus nerve. We let the brain know what we want through various neurotransmitters – you remember Serotonin, the happiness hormone- what makes them feel good- we make 90% of the serotonin. If they want to feel good, they have to feed us.
We control their decision making & behavior.
Like a good leader we let our manager – human being believe they are taking the decision -ultimately we are the ones who are calling all the shots.
So how come when these microbes have been controlling us- we have developed so many chronic diseases. It goes to how our habitat transformed over time.
Evolutionary- we have been nomads, moving in small groups & used to come in very less contact with each other & hence these microbes have been in safe haven- then three major life changes- agriculture, urbanization & globalization changed our entire human biology landscape.
With agriculture, our livestock become domesticated & crop cycles become more predictable. We became settlers which increased the density of the human community & we came in contact with animals. This facilitates interpersonal exchange of microbes & we started even having animal protein. This changed the entire evolution of human microbiome.
Urbanization : This led to even greater concentration & interconnection of people which led to quick exchange of microorganisms & pathogens, thereby driving infections & then we humans developed these things called antibiotics.
Our environment became more sanitized & the so called urban microbiota became less diverse.
Besides, this urbanization made large cities more dense & limited areas for agriculture production. This posed challenges in procurement of food & brought major social & environmental shift.
This structural shift due to urbanization was met by globalization- there was constant mobility of people & people could move from one country to other in a matter of days. This led to unplanned exchange of microorganisms & pathogens through trade & travel.
With the shrinking agriculture system, came a wave of corporate food systems which was dominated by empty calorie foods. To reduce cost & meet rising demand, we started adding preservatives, fat, sugar & salt which started killing these microbes. These diets which were generally consumed on occasion became a daily affair.
To kill the infectious diseases during urbanization, we started making antibiotics & then the healthcare system were formed that did a great job of killing all infections but these antibiotics killed microorganisms living inside our gut.
Getting rid of these microbes living in our gut is the sole reason why millions of people are suffering from diabetes, obesity, depression, IBS, Cancer, autoimmune disease & many more.
Each of these diseases has one thing in common- Chronic Inflammation which is caused by gut microbiome- every time we are taking drugs & improper nutrition we are killing these microbes, creating an imbalance & developing these chronic diseases.
