"I am large, I contain multitudes" Walt Whitman
Contents 6.
What is our micro-biome?
8.
Are we human?
10.
It protects us
12.
Infection
14.
Antibiotics
20.
Immunity is a global concern
22.
Infections evolving
24.
What does the future hold?
26.
What can we do?
28.
European Antibiotic Awareness Day
What is our micro-biome?
A micro-biome is the ecological community of symbiotic and pathogenic microorganisms that literally share our body space. Microbes are single-cell organisms so tiny that it is impossible to see them with the naked eye, you need a microscope to look at them. They are the oldest life form on earth. Microbe fossils date back more than 3.5 billion years, even hundreds of millions of years before dinosaurs roamed the earth.
Our microbial residents provide vital services that we cannot perform ourselves. They produce enzymes to help us and animals digest food, they provide us with more oxygen so that we can breathe, anti-inflammatory agents used by our immune system and moisturiser that helps to keep our skin supple and crack-free so pathogenic microbes don’t get in they even decay our rubbish.
Word origin: Greek  mikro (small) + bios (life)
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Are we human?
Without microbes, humans and everything else on this planet couldn’t survive. Understanding about microbes is very important and vital to what the planets past was like and what the future holds for us. The micro-biome is an essential part of the human body, which helps digest the food we eat, and the bacteria which live in and on us have become so much a part of what constitutes a human that to remove one is to adversely affect the other. This is because as the evolution of humanity has occurred, it has happened in symbiosis with the bacteria, whereby the bacteria and humanity are mutually beneficial to each other, much in the same way that flowers and bees are.
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Recent articles in science reveals that a hundred trillion microorganisms live in the human body, outnumbering our own cells ten to one. There are more microorganisms living on our hand than there are people on earth. It could legitimately be said that we are more microbe than human.
Human cells Microbe cells
It protects us
Microbes defend us. Trillions of microbes that live on and inside us protect us from pathogens simply by taking up space. By occupying spots where bad bacteria could get access to and thrive, good microbes keep us healthy. “It’s sort of like how having a nice ground cover around your house can prevent weeds from taking over.” Microbes detoxify and may even fight off stress. Just as humans breath in oxygen and release carbon dioxide, microbes in and on us take in toxins and spare us their dangerous effects.
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Infection
An imbalance of the micro-biome can end up causing infection. When this balance is disturbed, these colonies exhibit a decreased ability to check each other's growth, which can then lead to overgrowth of one or more of the disturbed colonies which may further damage some of the other smaller beneficial ones in a vicious cycle. As more beneficial colonies are damaged, making the imbalance more pronounced, more overgrowth issues occur because the damaged colonies are less able to check the growth of the overgrowing ones. If this goes unchecked long enough, a pervasive and chronic imbalance between colonies will set in, which ultimately minimises the beneficial nature of these colonies as a whole.
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Micro-biome communities also deposit many different types of waste by-products. The body effectively manages these by-products using different waste removal mechanisms, under normal circumstances the body can do this with little or no trouble. Oversized communities deposit larger amounts of these by-products which make it harder for the body to deal with, therefore the combination of large communities and waste by-product cause many negative health symptoms to make the micro-biome imbalanced.
Antibiotics
Antibiotics are medications used to treat, and in some cases prevent, bacterial infections. However, antibiotics often have no benefit for many other types of infection and using them unnecessarily (for example they do not work against infections that are caused by viruses like the common cold or flu, fungi, or fungal infection of the skin. Using antibiotics in these situations would only increase the risk of antibiotic resistance, so they should not be routinely used. Antibiotics work by killing the bacteria. This is often done by interfering with the structure of the cell wall of the bacteria. Some work by stopping the bacteria from multiplying therefore causing
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When you take an antibiotic, it enters your bloodstream and travels through your body, killing bacteria but not human cells. There are few differences, however, between harmful and friendly bacteria. Antibiotics kill not only the bad bacteria making you sick, but also your resident friendly bacteria. Friendly bacteria help keep you healthy in many ways, so when antibiotics kill friendly bacteria, your health can suffer because you lose these benefits. Additionally, losing friendly bacteria can give other types of bacteria room to multiply, leading to opportunistic infection.
In the past 60 years, antibiotics have been critical in the fight against infectious disease caused by bacteria and other microbes. Antimicrobial chemotherapy has been a leading cause for the dramatic rise of average life expectancy in the twetieth century. However, disease causing microbes that have become resistant to antibiotic rug therapy are an increasing public health problem. The accidental discovery of the antibiotic penicillin by Alexander Flemming in the 1920s made a big impact on human history. Not only did it lead to a cure for bacterial infections that were once deadly, but it also led a big interest in finding new antibiotics. Today many different types of antibiotics are available, and they fight infection in several ways.
Antibiotics are no
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Antibiotics have become an ordinary part of life, with most people having taken an antibiotic at one point in time, whether it was truly necessary or not. Antibiotics are misused in many different ways as we think they are a cure everything.
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Immunity is a global concern
Antibiotic resistance is currently the greatest challenge to the effective treatment of infections globally.
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Infections evolving
Antibiotic resistance is becoming a major problem and it’s already affecting us. A prominent example of the dangers of antibiotic resistance is the spread of MRSA. MRSA was once a concern only for people in the hospital, but a newer form of MRSA is causing infections in healthy people. Antibiotic resistance occurs when antibiotics no longer work against disease-causing bacteria. These infections are difficult to treat and can mean longer lasting illnesses, more doctor visits or extended hospital stays, and the need for more expensive and toxic medications. Some resistant infections can even cause death.
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Although experts are working to develop new antibiotics and other treatments to keep pace with antibioticresistant strains of bacteria, infectious organisms can adapt quickly. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria will continue to be a global health concern — and using antibiotics wisely is important for preventing their spread.
“MRSA and other bacteria have caused huge problems as they are resistant to almost all of the antibiotics we have developed. For a while Vancomycin was the only drug able to kill MRSA, but now Vancomycin-resistant strains have emerged.� Charlotte Rosher - BSc Biochemistry
What does the future hold?
The future doesn’t look promising if we do not take action soon, we will be in an almost 19th Century environment where infections kill us as a result of routine operations. We won’t be able to have heart, bowel, bone or cancer treatments as well as organ transplants. We haven’t had a new class of antibiotics since the late 80’s and there are very few antibiotics in the pipeline of the big pharmaceutical companies that develop and make drugs,
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In the recent annual report on global risks, the World Economic Forum (WEF) concluded that “arguably the greatest risk to human health comes in the form of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. We live in a bacterial world where we will never be able to stay ahead of the mutation curve. A test of our resilience is how far behind the curve we allow ourselves to fall.”
Preserving a Precious Commodity
What can we do?
We need to avoid getting infection, this can be done by improving sanitation. If an infection does take place within you, don’t always resort to antibiotics because the human micro-biome more often than not fight the infection. Health Professionals can use tools such as posters, pamphlets, one-on-one counselling, and participation in community health events. Pharmaceutical companies needed to be encouraged to develop new drugs, because the manufacture of antibiotics was not viewed as profitable.
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“The improvement of general sanitation and the implementation of vaccination programmes have also improved death statistics from infection, and these steps could be interpreted as a conscious effort to look after the micro-biome.� Richard Friend - Analytical chemist
European Antibiotic Awareness Day (EAAD)
Every year, European Antibiotic Awareness Day is held on November 18. It's a Europe-wide public health initiative that encourages responsible use of antibiotics. Public Health England (PHE) is responsible for coordinating EAAD activities in England. PHE is working towards the One Health initiative with the Department of Health’s Expert Advisory Committee on Antimicrobial Resistance and Healthcare Associated Infections (ARHAI), the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), devolved administrations and other professional bodies/organisations. One Health recognises that the health of people, animals and the environment are closely linked. It brings together multiple disciplines that aim to provide good health for all.
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Antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest threats facing us today. Why it is relevant to you: Without effective antibiotics many routine treatments will become increasingly dangerous. Setting broken bones, basic operations, even chemotherapy all rely on access to antibiotics that work. What we want you to do: To slow resistance we need to cut the use of unnecessary antibiotics. November 18th is European Antibiotic Awareness Day. As part of that we’re asking everyone in the UK, the public and the medical community to become Antibiotic Guardians. Call to action: Choose one simple pledge about how you’ll make better use of antibiotics and help save this vital medicine from becoming obsolete.
The attitudes regarding the value of the antibiotics in society may slowly be starting to change, although there is still a long road ahead. It is concerning that this change in attitudes may almost be too late in the game as we are getting very close to the edge of losing this resource. Luckily the examples of action that already have been taken are laying the groundwork for gaining the momentum necessary to accomplish the task of maintaining the effectiveness of antibiotics for the future.
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Encouraging people to take care of their own human micro-biome (the community of beneficial microbes that live inside our bodies).