What is the number of bacterial cells in the human body?

 I see bacteria when someone sneezes near us. We rush to wash our hands, spray the table with disinfectant, and even grimace !, We are, in fact, doing everything we can to avoid confrontation with the germy world. But the truth is that we are practically nothing but mobile bacterial cultures that go on two feet, cramming for the last of us with bacterial colonies, from our skins to the depths of our guts.

Inside you lives an amount of bacteria that is enough to fill half a gallon, and the human body is overcrowded with a number of bacterial cells equal to ten times the number of his own body cells, but because of the small size of these bacteria, they only need a small space of space. Despite the apparent horror of this matter, in reality it is a very good and useful thing for a person. Even more, according to Caroline Buch, a microbiologist at the University of Idaho, the sum of the genes we got from bacteria is a hundred and fifty times greater than the genes we inherited from our mother and father. In other words, genetically we are less than one percent human. However, we are only now beginning to become aware of the role of bacteria in our development and affecting us.

 

The first invasion of the bacteria on our body at birth: where children devour successive doses of bacteria during their breathing immediately after birth and when the mother's breast and milk are joined during the period of breastfeeding, as the mammary glands become home to colonies of bacteria during breastfeeding. “Our interaction with our mothers is the biggest bacterial shock we will encounter in life,” says Gary O'Fnagel, a microbiologist at the University of Michigan. And he adds: "This is just for the start, as during our lives we ingest successive doses of the bacteria in our food and drink."

Although studies indicate that our intestine is home to more than 500 types of bacteria, most of them belong to one of these two families: the "wall staples" (which include staphylococcus, streptococcus, and streptococcus) are Gram-positive or "Bacillus" and are Gram-negative.

For a long time, scientists believed that these bacteria, despite their huge numbers, do not harm or benefit people much, but their position changed after that when studies indicated that the bacteria produce chemicals that help us extract energy and nutrients from our food. In an experiment on mice, scientists discovered that the rodents devoid of bacteria are forced to eat one and a half times more calories than normal to keep their weight like normal rodents and not lose. And when these rodents are given a dose of the bacteria, we find that fat levels rise in their bodies, even if they do not eat more than before.

Bacteria also keep our immune system healthy. Several studies indicate the role of microbes in regulating the proliferation and density of intestinal immune cells by helping to develop intestinal lymph tissue that performs many immune and protective functions.

On top of all this, so-called probiotics (nutritional supplements that contain microbes with health benefits) have been shown to benefit the immune system. Also, gut bacteria help protect you from the rest of the harmful disease-causing bacteria in your food and drink, making them truly one of the arms of your immune system.

Unfortunately, however, these friendly gut bacteria are not always able to stem the attack of harmful bacteria, which causes us to resort to antibiotics from time to time. However, these antibiotics not only kill harmful bacteria, but also kill the friendly bacteria that regulate the digestive process on their way. This is why probiotics cause diarrhea and stomach upset.

And friendly bacteria were not satisfied with all of that, but bacteria made great contributions to the human genome, as a group of scientists discovered that about 40 human genes were originally bacterial genes.

The question remains, however, how exactly did we acquire these genes? Some scientists explain this by assuming that these genes were passed on to humans somewhat recently in evolutionary history, because those genes were not found in our animal ancestors. Others see it as representing ancient traces of evolutionary events at a time in the history of our species. The question remains under the research circle.

One thing is for sure: our lives and tendencies are connected to the world of germs much more than we ever imagined. Bacteria, our friend, do a lot for our health, and scientists are just beginning to try to discover their valuable secrets. As one scientist said: "We still do not understand the full impact of friendly bacteria on our health and our organic functions."