Taking Stock of the Human Microbiome and Disease

Our bodies, inside and out, are teeming with trillions of microbes. Most of them are our friends, helping us to digest food, strengthen our immune systems, and keep dangerous enemy pathogens from invading our tissues and organs. Evidence is building that this resident community of microbes, called t...

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Published inScience (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 336; no. 6086; pp. 1246 - 1247
Main Author BALTER, MICHAEL
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States American Association for the Advancement of Science 08.06.2012
The American Association for the Advancement of Science
Subjects
Autoimmune diseases
Biological taxonomies
Biomedical Research
Biomes
Communities
Dangerous
Disease
Funding
Genes
Genomes
Genomics
Health
Human
Humans
Immune systems
Intestinal diseases
Metagenome
Microbiota
Microorganisms
NEWS
Pathogens
Probiotics
Raw materials
Research Support as Topic
Sequence Analysis, DNA
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Summary:Our bodies, inside and out, are teeming with trillions of microbes. Most of them are our friends, helping us to digest food, strengthen our immune systems, and keep dangerous enemy pathogens from invading our tissues and organs. Evidence is building that this resident community of microbes, called the microbiome, plays a major role in health and disease. When the normal composition of the microbiome is thrown off balance, researchers say, the human host can get into serious trouble-especially because the 5 million to 8 million different microbial genes in our bodies vastly outnumber the 20,000 or so human genes. Indeed, recent research has implicated microbiome imbalances in disorders as diverse as cancer, obesity, inflammatory bowel disease, psoriasis, asthma, and possibly even autism.
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ISSN:0036-8075
1095-9203
DOI:10.1126/science.336.6086.1246