humanmicrobiomeA Bioom is an important community of life. A micro biome is the totality of microbial life, and their mutual interaction with their environment. Their influence (on animals, plants, people, environment) is so important that they are integral part of it.

End of 2007, the American National Institutes of Health, commissioned to bring the complete human microbiome in map.
In the Human Microbiome Project, scientists took DNA samples from 242 healthy Americans, 129 men and 113 women. Over a period of nearly two years, the DNA of the skin (our largest organ!), the respiratory system, the digestive tract, mouth and vagina was taken three times under the microscope.

Bacteria and their genes can be identified by gene '16S' of ribosomal RNA which occurs in all of the bacteria, but not in human cells. In bacterial species this gene differs, so that 16S serves as a kind of bar code in order to distinguish them.
The composition of the micro biome is different per person, per year, and also even per day.
Also, every place has its own communities. The difference between the ecosystem on head, neck and forearms is as big as in forest, savanna and wetlands.


Of the 100,000 microbes per cm² of skin you get very little rid of with washing and rinsing. The approximately 200 different species over our skin differ greatly from person to person.

In and on your body are approximately 100 trillion (100 x 1 million x 1 million) beneficial bacteria, accounting for more than 1 kilogram. For every human cell there are as many as ten cells with a bacterial origin. So about 90% of our cells are bacterial, 10% is human.
It is estimated that the genomes of all microorganisms together have about eight million coding genes. That's 360 times as much as our own complete genome of 'only' 22,000 genes.
Metagenomics is to investigate genes of an entire bacterial community. For the total intestinal flora, this means about 3.3 million different genes, or almost 150 times more than there are in human DNA. 

The DNA of a human is 50% equal to that of a banana. With higher organisms this rises: up to 95% compared to a chimpanzee. Our DNA contains an average of 400 errors, usually mutations without noticeable influence.

There are an average of 900 species of bacteria in your nose, on your hand 150; 800 in your buccal, 1,300 on your teeth, in your intestines 4,000 and 300 in your vagina. Within the same location the microbiome between people can also vary significantly.

A person in a room brings every hour 37 million additional bacteria in the air, including by whirling. Less than 0.1 percent of the bacteria can make us sick.
What bacteria do and mean we are only beginning to explore. We know only a tip of the iceberg.
Bacteria play a number of body functions such as digestion, they help turning food into energy, doing synthesis of certain vitamins, blocking pathogens. They affect many processes. In exchange, they get room and board.

Change in the composition of micro- organisms in the gut has an influence on the development of Crohn's disease, a chronic inflammatory bowel disease. A disturbance of the intestinal flora may result in infection, auto -immune diseases and cancer.
And on the skin it can cause the skin disease psoriasis.

The microbiome may also explain why people respond differently to medications or are (more) sensitive to certain infectious diseases.

Which bacteria are our friend and which our enemy? That is not easy or obvious. Staphylococcus aureus occurs in about 30 percent of healthy people in the nasal cavity and is mostly harmless. However, the bacteria can become resistant to antibiotics.
She is as MRSA (methicillin - resistant Staphylococcus aureus) dangerous for people with weakened immune systems.

Astounding result from early research (2017). Our gut microbes have a strong influence on our emotional behavior. There is a strong correlation between cognition and the gut microbiome that not only influences thought processes, but even the physical structure of the brain itself.

Previous research had shown that bacteria transmit information, such as neurons, through small pores, ion channels, that lead electrically charged potassium molecules between them. As a result, potassium-hungry bacteria cells on the inside of a biofilm can signal the outer cells that they have to stop consuming available nutrients and strengthen their community by expanding to find zones with food.

 It is also possible that bacterial and human intestinal cells can interact electrically in the human intestine.

According to neurobiologists, our abdomen and brain are strongly connected, they "talk to each other". The gastrointestinal tract is often called the second brain. According to psychologist Kirsten Tillisch they contain at least as many nerve cells. They make that the intestines execute all kinds of activities independently.

There is a lot of blood to flow to the belly, but violent emotions such as infatuation bring the body into a safety mode, where abdominal activity temporarily reduces. The butterflies in your stomach area are therefore the result of the chemical process in your brain.

Our intestinal system is sometimes called the 'second brain' or the 'sixth sense'. The vagus nerve or vaginal nerve is the tenth (of 12) cranial nerves, and would be directly connected to the stomach and intestines, and if possible also provide for the 'gut feeling' (research 2018).

Average live in humans some 160 different (more than 1,150 known) species of bacteria in the intestines. These bacteria multiply rapidly. About half of the solid stool consists of microbial biomass!

The intestinal flora can be up to 90 percent different between two people yet both are very healthy, because different types of bacteria in the gut can perform the same functions.
Surprisingly pathogenic bacteria live peacefully in the microbiome alongside other bacteria. Normal flora protect against harmful.

Certain bacteria in the colon of a human, live of the cell walls of plants that we cannot digest. They digest long sugars and tough fibers. Or create wastes that are useful to humans (vitamins), amino acids and fatty acids.

There are three “intestinal - type“ or enterotypes, similar to blood groups.
Those types are independent of race, national origin, age, health or nutrition.
The most common is Rumminococcus. In addition, there are Bacteroides and Prevotella. The names are derived from the bacteria which dominate the intestinal flora.

Several other bacteria have negative and positive correlations with the dominant bacterial species and each other.
Each type of intestinal flora takes over another method useful nutrients from the intestine. The production of vitamins varies greatly between the three types.
The more efficient the energy bacteria can evade from the food, the greater the chance that the person has a high BMI.
It may be possible in the future to fit diet or treatment in order to tune in to the intestinal flora - type of a patient.

In the meantime, publications already mention "the abdominal brain" or enteric nervous system.

There is a large nervous system in the wall of the intestine that regulates digestion. This does not happen so much from the brain. This bundle consists of approximately half a billion neurons and is connected to the brain via the spinal cord, that of has approximately 85 billion neurons. There are similar neural networks in our hearts too.

Everyone experiences that yoga, bodywork and sports influence mood and thinking. The brain receives signals from the body, reacts to them and changes.

Bacteria are responsible for the production of neurotransmitters in the intestinal cells: signal substances that affect the nerves. Dopamine controls the experience of pleasure and determines how energetic you are. More than 90% of the "lucky hormone" serotonin is produced in the intestinal cells.

Studies indicate that there is a link between the "gut brain" and the onset of depression. What you eat is important.


Relatives and family members have bacterial populations alike.
The colonization by bacteria occurs at birth, via the vagina of the mother. The microorganism balance in the vagina changes a few weeks before birth, such as the microbes that digest milk can multiply.
The microbiome of the baby resembles that of its mother and develops, as the immune system, especially in the first years of life. Among other things by the food. Breast milk contains not only food for the baby but also for the microbes in the stomachs of babies.
The immune system learns to recognize the concerning bacteria as beneficial.

How children born by Caesarean get the first bacteria from their microbiome is not yet clear. They are colonized by bacteria that live on the skin instead of in the vagina. That they have a different microbiome does not mean that this determines the health of the baby.

It is known that vaginal birth has advantages for both mother and child. There are fewer types of allergies, asthma, celiac disease, type 1 diabetes, autoimmune diseases, and fewer hospitalizations for diarrhea and vomiting.

In experiments with mice, it appears that the microbes in the intestines are both defining the personality as well as the brain structure. Bred mice without microbiome are hyperactive and have hardly any fear. There are no microbes in the brain, but the microbes in the gut produce molecules that reach the brain.

Microbirthing or vaginal seeding is a recent trend (2016) in which a swab from the birth canal is applied to the mouth and the eyes of the baby. Doctors warn that women unconsciously may have diseases and may transmit herpes, chlamydia and gonorrhea.

There are viruses that kill bacteria. These (bacterio) phages recognize the cell wall of the bacteria on their protein coat and inject via a "tail" of their own genetic material. This uses the host's metabolism to make new virus particles. When the newly formed viruses are released, the bacterial cell is destroyed. Befor the development of penicillin and other broad spectrum antibiotics, they were used in phage therapy to combat bacterial infections.

Virome is the totality of all viruses in and on our bodies. Externally the diversity of viruses is the greatest in the curvature of the arm. Certainly ninety percent of viruses on our skin are totally unknown. They may infect bacteria and are often long settled in them for a long time.
Some viruses contain genes that make their hosts (the bacteria) more resistant to antibiotics.

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