It has been widely reported that auto-immune diseases, including Type-1 Diabetes, are on the rise world-wide. In an auto-immune disease, the immune system goes awry and launches an attack against the person’s own cells, misidentifying them as a threat to attack. So why is it that in our developed world, where we have better access […]
5 Reasons Why Bacteria is the Hottest Topic in Human Health
Despite the best efforts of people like my middle school Biology teacher who tried to teach us otherwise, most of us have been raised to be alarmed by the “alien life” of bacteria teeming in our eyelashes and hair, on the surface of our skin, in our mouths and even in our digestive tracts. Let’s […]
Could the Active Ingredient in Roundup be Causing a Health Epidemic?
Fact 1: Glyphosate is the active ingredient in the world’s most common agricultural herbicides. Fact 2: The mechanism that glyphosate uses to kill plants is the same mechanism by which it kills the beneficial bacteria and yeasts found in the human microbiome that are necessary for good health. Fact 3: Glyphosate consumption has been shown […]
What is a Baby’s Microbiome and Why Should Expectant Mothers Care?
My mother’s generation, who gave birth during the 1950’s and 1960’s, had a less-stressful, less-worrisome time of it than those of us giving birth in the 21st century. A parenting book in the 1950’s actually advises expectant mothers to limit themselves to only two highball cocktails a night! Whereas we are given strict prohibitions on […]
Probiotics: A Promising Treatment for IBS Symptoms
Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is the most common intestinal disorder in the US – affecting 30 million Americans and 15 – 20% of people in the Western world. The majority of sufferers are relatively young and are female. Even though it is so prevalent, medical science does not yet fully understand the condition and does […]
Allergies: A First World Problem with a Bacterial Solution?
The rates and severities of allergies have risen very quickly over the last twenty years and are much more prevalent in the industrialized world than they are elsewhere. Some estimates have stated as many as one in five Americans has some sort of allergic condition. The current prevailing scientific theory is that changes to the […]
Bacterial Esperanto: How Bacteria Communicate and Affect Us
In this Ted Talk, molecular biologist, Bonnie Bassler, talks about how microscopic, single-celled bacteria can act collectively to influence their environment. Since we are 90% bacterial (there are 10X as many bacterial cells as there are human cells in and on our bodies at any time), they are actually influencing us and this bacterial influence […]
Research Shows Antibiotics Can Cause Obesity
I had always known that commercial farmers put antibiotics into their livestock feed, and generally have tried to buy free-range, organic or antibiotic-free chicken and beef, even though it was much more expensive and the chickens were noticeably smaller. I’ve wanted to avoid meat raised this way not because of a fear that there were […]
The Connection Between Obesity and Bad Gut Bacteria
I can still remember being overweight as a young adult and I would have given anything to be able to take a pill to make the pounds fly away. So, I guess it’s no surprise that get-slim-quick pills and miracle fat burning creams are a mainstay on late-night TV advertising. Although losing weight will never […]
6 Ways We Can Upset Bacterial Balance in Our Guts
There’s mounting evidence that maintaining a healthy ecosystem of gut bacteria in our microbiome can have a wide range of health benefits. And there are many things we can do (and eat) to help create and maintain a favorable composition of gut bacteria. But, how do our microbiomes get out of whack in the first […]