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Our Health and Our Microbiome: A Matter of Balance

by Russell A. Faust, PhD, MD

It’s a Matter of Balance.

A couple weeks ago I talked about the complex universe of non-human life living within us – our microbiome: Paradigm Shifting Without A Clutch. These bacteria, archaea (single-cell life form separate from bacteria), viruses, and fungi that comprise our microbiome mostly live in harmony with us.

They do us no harm (mostly), and they help us.

They assist us in maintaining our immune system.

They help us produce vitamin K.

They help crowd-out other species of bacteria or fungi that might do us harm.

Symbiosis

In summary, they live together with us in a harmonious balance – a Symbiosis.

Dysbiosis

When this Symbiosis that we share with our microbiome becomes unbalanced, it can result in trouble. The microbiome can become over-run by bad, detrimental microorganisms.

This is called Dysbiosis.

Although this is not the intent when we take antibiotics to treat an infection, any antibiotics can kill beneficial bacteria along with the bad bacteria that are causing the infection. Even when antibiotics are effective in killing the bacteria causing the original infection, antibiotics can result in yeast or other fungal infections, or secondary overgrowth of other detrimental microorganisms. Dysbiosis.

The symptom of dysbiosis that results from antibiotics killing our beneficial bacteria – the symptom that we are most familiar with after taking a strong antibiotic – is diarrhea. Many people experience diarrhea associated with taking antibiotics. Not as the result of an allergy to the antibiotic (although they often report their symptoms as an allergy to their doc), but as a result of dysbiosis of their GI mirobiome.

What To Do About It?

The next installment in this series will review what we can to about a disturbance in our microbiome.

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In the meantime, please leave a message and tell us whether you have used probiotics.

If so, what was your goal – what were you treating, if anything?

How did it go?

Which probiotics did you take?

We will all benefit by everyone sharing their experiences.

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Image Credit: Pseudomonas, by Janice Haney Carr, CDC, Published in the Public Health Image Library

Click on this link for more of Dr. Carr’s stunning images of microorganisms:  http://bit.ly/fBqsBI

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Until next time, remember … you can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your friend’s nose (unless you’re a boogor doctor :~D)

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Tags: dysbiosis, immunity, microbiome, probiotics, symbiosis