In an article published some time ago on this blog, which concerned the “plants intelligence”, we had started from the obvious – obvious but often not kept in mind – that the planet Earth works as a single body and that the human being is not a discreet entity, isolated from the surrounding world: it is inserted within an ecosystem consisting of living organisms, whether they are plants, animals or microorganisms.
An interconnected life with continuous exchanges of energy and substances from which dynamic, temporary and constantly evolving balances derive from it. A change in a knot of this network will bring widespread changes, a dynamic that occurs outside and inside man.
What does the internal ecosystem consist of?
Inside, precisely in the intestinal tract – but also at the skin level – we find bacterial colonies with which the human organism maintains a balance. The microorganisms that colonize the intestine constitute the microbiota or microbioma.
The term microbiota means the set of microorganisms present in our intestinal system; By microbioma we mean the same situation in which, however, the emphasis on the set of the genetic heritage that is constituted. In fact, we live with microorganisms whose total dna wealth – with over 3 million genes – exceeds about 150 that present in human cells.
The human body shares its intestinal space with about 150 species of microorganisms and each man has his percentages among these species as their individual characteristic. Recent data (2016) confirm that the distribution of these intestinal microorganisms is not at all casual within the digestive tract.
We find a few hundred bacteria in the stomach, billions at the colon level. Each species of microorganism has a tendency to colonize small stretches of intestine: the aerobic bacteria tend to place more in the first intestinal sections while those the anaerobes ((which can survive even without oxygen) – and which make up the greatest number – we find them gradually approaching the terminal part of the colon.
The creation of this ecosystem takes place gradually in the course of life: at the time of birth, the neonatal digestive tube is sterile (just as the internal human tissues are); Then the birth, breastfeeding and the environment – with its objects, social contacts and nutrition – gradually increase the number of microorganisms.
In the first three years of life, interventions on the bacterial flora can determine changes to the microbiota that will perish throughout the life span.
In adulthood environmental factors, stress, hormonal variations – in women think of pregnancy, menopause, menstrual phase – the type of diet, pharmacological treatments can cause changes in the balance between the various species of microorganisms.
Unlike the early stages of life, in the adult these changes take place with greater slowness precisely because of the tendency of the microbiota already present to remain unchanged: the changes caused by external or internal agents determine generally transient changes that will then tend to resolve on the original balance.
These are these data that lead to considering man in themselves as an ecosystem consisting of a set of proper genetic material and microorganisms.
The microbiota is conceived as a real metabolic apparatus, within the host body, capable of carrying out those biological processes, necessary for survival, that the human body alone would not be able to do.
A human existence in an aseptic environment is not conceivable: the microbiota allows us to assimilate nutrients that are not otherwise digestible, the synthesis of vitamins, the demolition of toxic substances, the regulation of the activity of the immune system – immune system very active and present in the intestine, just think that the wormform appendix, whose inflammation determines the picture known to all “appendicite”, takes. Even the name of abdominal tonsilla -, the creation of a protective barrier against any other pathogens.
Small quantities of germs positively stimulate our immune system while maintaining it alert and active; Bacterial proteins can determine what are called crusaded reactions with human antigens causing a dysfunction of the immune system, which ends up attacking parts of the body that should not normally be touched. Different allergies, food intolerances and autoimmune diseases have this mechanism at the base.
A good balance between “good” and those who are not, is defined as eubosi. Contrary, the alteration of this balance, for the benefit of the latter, is called dysbiosis.
A misunderstood can be detected in paintings that directly concern the digestive system-constipation, diarrhea, inflammation of digestive-but also in systemic paintings ranging from autoimmune pathologies to metabolic ones (e.g. obesity, hypercholesterolemia, insulin-resistance) to involve the psychic sphere with alterations of the mood or conduct.
The latter aspect does not surprise clinicians since it is well known as a high percentage of serotonin – one of the neurotransmitters called into question in the maintenance of mood – rather than in the brain we find it in the intestine.
The type of bacterial flora can be responsible for the production and entry into circulation of toxic substances for the nervous system such as lactic acid or an excess of nitrogen.
What we eat has an important role in determining the composition of our microbiota. We also get to hypothesize a question that is anything but stupid: is it we who choose food or is it the microbiota that sends us signals to procure what it needs? It is a theme on which it is reflected in very serious scientific fields.
Waiting for further confirmations, at the moment you work on the microbiota also using living organisms that bring a benefit to the bacterial flora, the probiotics. Unlike these, prebiotics are food substances, not digestible, used as nourishment for the intestinal flora, which selectively help some bacterial strains.
Two centuries ago the philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach said: “We are what we eat”, greatly anticipating today’s thought. But popular wisdom had already knew from before.
