You're Only Human

By Alex White, MD

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They look like alien lifeforms straight out of a sci-fi movie.  Hideous creatures sporting huge teeth or covered with slime, that slither or lurch through dark corridors that never see the light of day.  They’re the stuff of our nightmares and yet they are all too real.  Living inside all of us is a zoo of microscopic organisms that call our body home.

More than 100 trillion tiny creatures inhabit each and every one of us, going about their business without our knowledge.  There isn’t a place in us or on us that these critters don’t inhabit.  A number of them like the view from our eyebrows and eyelashes.  Some prefer to spend their days burrowed head first in your skin pores, while others live in the depths of your bowels.  I know what you’re thinking…Ewwww!

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Like it or not, you literally couldn’t live without these tiny creatures.  Each and every one of them perform a service that lets you live the good life while they toil tirelessly within. In fact, there is a body of evidence that suggests that many of the maladies humans find themselves afflicted with are due to an imbalance in what is known as the microbiome.

You Can Thank Your Mom

Germs have gotten a bad reputation.  If you don’t believe me, ask your mom.  After all, she was the one who was always after you to wash your hands when you were little. It turns out that this obsession with cleanliness might have done us more harm than good.  Too sterile of an environment is a bad thing for the body.

The simple fact of the matter is that we are swimming in bacteria 24/7.  The only time they present a problem is when they become introduced to a place they don’t belong, or when they overproduce in a place they do.  Just like the Earth’s atmosphere, our microbiome forms a kind of force field that repels alien invaders.  As in H.G. Wells novel, War of the Worlds, where the Martians nearly wipe out humanity before succumbing to terrestrial infection, bacteria are our friends.

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Believe it or not, the only time we are free of bacteria is when we are curled up snug and comfy in our mother’s womb.  We are in effect living in a sterile environment until the moment of our birth when we are first introduced to the world of microbes by our mother.  Add to it the fact that mother’s milk contains hundreds of kinds of bacteria and you come to realize that this is the way nature intended it.  Thanks, mom!

You see, germs not only protect us from pathogens, but they also regulate everything from our immune response to digestive health.  Therein lies the rub. If left unchecked, both your immune system and your digestion can get trigger happy and start attacking the very things they are supposed to protect.  Everything from allergies to lactose intolerance, ulcers, asthma, celiac disease and inflammatory bowel syndrome can be traced to imbalances in the microbiome.

The Microbiome and Me

From cradle to grave, your health is determined in large part by how the legion of microbes that call your body home get along with one another.  Like everything else on this planet, the microscopic creatures that live within us are constantly competing.  In essence, your body is like a rain forest that is deep, dark and warm.  Like a terrestrial rainforest, it is host to a myriad of creatures that call the forest home.  Inside all of us are plants and animals that live, die and breed.  These lifeforms compete with one another for food and space.  As long as the rainforest remains balanced, life is good.  However, should the flora and fauna get out of balance, then there’s trouble in paradise.

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Case in point: Until the mid-1990’s, physicians the world over believed that peptic ulcers were the result of stress. The general consensus was that stress caused the overproduction of stomach acids which in turn resulted in ulcers.  It wasn’t until 1981 that Dr. Barry Marshall, an Australian physician made a startling discovery.  After doing biopsies of ulcer patients, he noticed that they all had one thing in common.  Not only were the linings of their stomachs ulcerate, they were overrun by a corkscrew-shaped bacteria called Helicobacter pylori.  The cure, he realized, was as simple as administering a course of antibiotics. 

After doing so with great success to himself, he published the results.  Instead of lauding Dr. Marshall for his groundbreaking discovery, gastroenterologists were dismissive at best and hostile at worst to the idea that bacteria caused peptic ulcers. Even though people were dying from peptic ulcers, it took nearly 15 years for the medical community to recognize that bacteria caused ulcers and that antibiotics was the cure.

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That doesn’t mean that antibiotics don’t come with a few flies in the ointment.  If you have ever had a cold and gone to the doctor only to be given antibiotics which killed the cold bugs only to give you diarrhea, you can appreciate the fact that sometimes the cure can be almost as bad as the disease.  The problem with antibiotics is that they kill indiscriminately.  They not only knock out bad bugs, but wipe out good bacteria as well.

This phenomenon has led some health professionals to conclude that instead of trying to kill the bacteria that causes infection, a better solution would be to feed the microbes that are beneficial.  This has led to the creation of probiotics and prebiotics. 

Probiotics are live bacteria and yeasts that are beneficial to your digestive system.  Probiotics can be used to restore beneficial bacteria, such as those that are lost after taking antibiotics.  They can also be used to improve the balance of bacteria in your body.

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Prebiotics are substances that encourage the growth of bacteria and fungi that are beneficial to their host.  First identified and named by Marcel Roberfroid in 1995, prebiotics are non-digestible fiber compounds that nourish the microbiota of the gastrointestinal tract.

By including probiotics and prebiotics in your diet, your gut ecology will change, providing many health benefits.

MicrobeFiber tm soluble fiber does for your body what other brands don’t because MicrobeFiber tm is additive-free.  Participants in cinical trials of MicrobeFiber tm have experienced weight loss, reduced cholesterol levels, improved digestion, better sleep, decreased allergy symptoms and increased energy.

What it boils down to is if you want to live a healthy, happy life, you first need to make peace with the critters that live inside you.  After all, you’re only human.

Alex White, MD is the Clinical Research Director of MicrobeFiber™