"Human bodies are like cities, teeming with microcitizens vast communities of viruses, fungi and bacteria that live all over our skin and inside us. Unsung public servants help us digest food, regulate our immune system, defend against pathogens, and keep hormones in check. Together, they make up what we call the human microbiome. Most people have probably heard of the gut microbiome, but different microbes thrive all over our bodies in our nostrils, on our feet, in our eyes."
"Ninety per cent of cells in our body are microbes, and clouds of bacteria come off someone's body as they enter a room. We are all walking ecosystems, picking up and shedding material as we move through life. Modern life is waging a war against ecosystems inside us and surrounding us, however. When people think about the nature crisis they probably think about vanishing rainforests or species going extinct, but there is another, hidden extinction happening at a microscopic level."
Human bodies host vast microbial communities across skin and internal sites, performing digestion, immune regulation, pathogen defense and hormonal balance. Different body sites support distinct microbial communities analogous to urban boroughs. Microbes outnumber human cells and continuously disperse into the environment, making people mobile ecosystems that acquire and shed microbes. Modern lifestyles and environmental change are eroding internal microbial diversity, producing a hidden microscopic extinction parallel to global biodiversity loss with significant health consequences. Urban and natural environments differ in biodiversity, and exposure to richer outdoor biodiversity associates with better physical and thermal health and influences internal microbial diversity.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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