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Ed Yong, Microbes are so cool, You have no idea how many times I had to edit out fascinating and interesting from this post maybe I should have just written those words over and over and over and left it at that
When Walt Whitman declared “I contain multitudes,” he had no idea that it was more than just a metaphor. Ed Yong, a science staff writer for The Atlantic, provides an entertaining, fascinating, sometimes thought-provoking, sometimes kind of gross survey of the microbes that live within us as well as other animals.
The microbiome is a big deal of late. You may have heard about it. You may also have heard about Fecal Matter Transplant in which poo from a person with a healthy gut is transplanted into someone who is sick. The idea is the healthy bacteria will take hold in the sick person and bring their stomach and intestines back into working order. And it does for certain kinds of problems. In fact it works so well, you can find instructions on the internet about how to do this yourself. Not recommended, however, as Yong notes a number of DIY people have shown up at hospitals with some raging infections because of it. Yong dedicates almost an entire chapter to FMT and the scientists and doctors who are working to figure out which microbes are the ones we really need, grow them in a lab and create an easy to swallow capsule sans poop. Though one of the researchers who is testing out a capsule calls it “Repoopulate.” Ah those wacky scientists!
Scientists have known about the microbes in our bodies since the 1600s. At that time they could see them with a microscope but had no idea what they did. Time and science progressed and the idea of probiotics was floated out there but no one could really prove anything. Then the age of antibiotics was ushered in followed quickly by the belief that all “germs” were bad and needed to be killed. Bacteria can definitely be nasty critters, but it turns out, after science decided that actually studying what they do in our bodies is a good idea, they discovered that maybe 10% of all of the millions of varieties of bacteria are actually harmful. The rest, either don’t hurt or they are really super duper useful.
Fun fact. Did you know that our cell mitochondria actually used to be a bacteria? It proved so useful to the healthy functioning of our cells that us and them eventually merged together. How cool is that?
The study of microbiomes is prompting scientists and doctors to think about health and sickness in different ways. Instead of viewing disease as a single entity, they are now looking at it as a disruption of the body’s ecology. At first it was believed that figuring out microbes would lead to all kinds of cures for diseases that had been troubling us for a long a time — obesity, allergies, immune disorders. Take a pill with the right microbes in it and your cured!
Of course it isn’t that easy, which is what is bringing science around to a systemic whole-body approach. They are learning that, depending on what microbes a person hosts, medicines will work differently. For instance, the popular antibiotic acetomycin, is completely ineffective for individuals who host certain microbes. Likewise other medications and treatments work better, worse, or differently than expected because of a person’s microbial ecology. The future of medicine is moving closer and closer to something more tailored to the individual rather than a one-size-fits all approach. It is still a ways off and likely to be expensive in the beginning, but that is where we are heading. My guess is that one hundred years from now people will look back at us and cringe in horror at how barbaric our medical practices are.
But the book isn’t just about people, animals and insects host microbes too and Yong takes us on a tour of some very interesting ones. A squid whose night time glow is due to its microbes. The discovery that termites can only digest wood because of the microbes they host in their digestive system. Hyenas use microbes to communicate with one another. Aphids can’t help giving off a certain scent because of their microbiome and certain parasitic wasps take advantage of that scent to hunt them down. And so much more!
I keep wanting to say fascinating! Bookman is probably glad I am done reading this because we’d be quietly reading in bed and I would suddenly shout, “WOW!” At the beginning of the book I almost set it aside because there were typos all over the place (kind of like this post – I hope I have fixed them all!). I was getting really super annoyed. As a reader, one or two typos in a whole book I can tolerate but it was getting ridiculous. I kept reading though because the material is so — fascinating. Eventually the typos disappeared. Perhaps they had a new intern proofreading the first few chapters or something, who knows?
The study of microbiomes is in its infancy and Yong does a good job on his whirlwind introductory tour. I Contain Multitudes is easy to read, well-paced, and, for the science geeks among you, super exciting (and fascinating!). Just keep reading past the typos, or wait for the paperback when they will hopefully have it all fixed.
Fascinating indeed, Stefanie! 🙂 This sounds really good. I’ve got a couple of similarly-themed books on my TBR. One is called The Hidden Half of Nature: The Microbial Roots of Life and Health by David Montgomery and Annie Bikle and the other is The Good Gut: Taking Control of Your Weight, Your Mood, and Your Long-term Health by Justin and Erica Sonnenburg. Both focus on connections between human health, soil microbes, and the microbial life in our intestines. I’m really interested in this stuff! Thanks for writing about this one.
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Laila, it is a good book and lays a good foundation for understanding the science. We hardly know anything at this point so I expect there will be lots of great discoveries to come. The books on your TBR sounds interesting too!
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I’m looking forward to reading this one myself — it just came in at work this week! I follow Ed Yong on twitter and always find him interesting. Plus every time I hear the word Mitochondria I think of Madeleine L’Engle and that’s always a good thing 🙂
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Melanie, Yong is a good writer, explains things clearly and sometimes with humor. Anything that makes you think of L’Engle is a good thing 🙂
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I’m so glad to hear you enjoyed this! Ed Yong is a great science writer and I’ve been looking forward to reading it. Weird about the typos though. (Also, if you like this book, have you read any of Carl Zimmer’s books?)
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biblioglobal, Yong is good, I like his style and will have to see what else he has written. I have not heard of Carl Zimmer, but looking him up he’s got a list of intriguing books including one about tattoos! Thanks for the tip on him! The typos were odd and I am glad I kept reading since the book turned out to be so good.
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Really cool breakdown! Though I suspected that our health is about preserving s certain ecology and that individual approached to treatment were necessary quite a whiles ago.
But wow… Repoopulate.
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Thanks Wanderwolf! It’s interesting, isn’t it, how we all know the body works as a system but yet medicine rarely treats it that way. Heh, not sure I’d be keen on taking a pill called Repoopulate! 🙂
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Ha ha. No.
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Sounds like a great book about a fascinating topic: added to my to-read list, along with (a similarly geeky) one you might also like: The Hidden Life of Trees… although from what I’ve read in other reviews, it might put you off eating plants!
Anyhow, nice review, thanks!
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Fascinating is, indeed, the inevitable word and this book sounds pretty irresistible. I am interested in the ecological take on human biology and, as you imply, it seems a little strange that is has taken such a long time to see our bodies in this way. Fascinating indeed!
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Ian, heh I am glad I am not the only one who finds it hard to not use fascinating in relation to this book! It is strange that is has taken medicine so long to reach and ecological perspective on the body. I don’t think it has quite reached the everyday approach yet but it will get there eventually.
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duplicator, yes! I just learned a few days ago about The Hidden Life of Trees and I am looking forward to reading it. Since I already don’t eat animals, I might have to look into learning how to photosynthesize 🙂
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This sounds so interesting.
I think that this is atopic that even folks who are aware of biology and science rarely think about.
I love a good science book and I would like to read this.
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Brian Joseph, nobody used to think it was important except the bacteria that caused disease but now science is beginning to understand just ow important it is. There are things our bodies can’t do without the help of bacteria. Plus, a good science book on any topic is always enjoyable in my opinion 🙂
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I love writers who make science interesting and understandable! I’ve read about the fecal matter transplants and hope this procedure will be successful for those who need it. I had a student with Chrohn’s disease years ago; so debilitating.
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jenclair, I do too! FMT works on a very specific issue only but it works really well. Very briefly scientists thought they had a cure for obesity, MS and possibly even diabetes but they could only get it to work in sterile mice and only sometimes so there is a lot going on they still don’t understand but it is looking ever brighter.
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My friend who writes SF, Joan Slonczewski, has studied these things for as long as I’ve known her. You should read her novel Brain Plague, which is about a person’s “multitudes” learning to communicate with her.
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Jeanne, oooh now that sound intriguing! 🙂
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I suspect I wouldn’t be shouting Wow but YUK at the section on FMT…..
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BookerTalk, heh, yeah, that chapter is not for the faint-hearted 🙂
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This sounds fascinating (there, I said it too!). I’m surprised there were so many typos in it. Typos don’t usually bother me–mistakes happen–unless there are too many of them.
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AMB, Haha! Now and then a typos doesn’t bother me so much but early on in the book there were lots of really glaring ones like the dates of the guy that first looked at microbes in a microscope was something like 1665 and then he made another discovery in 1985 (or thereabouts I don’t have the book to check this any longer). The must have have found the microbes of youth!
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Seriously, DIY people are trying out that?! Oh my… I had heard of it and I’m a crafty person but would never think of that! ha I can’t even imagine what made them think to try this. Anyway, this book does sound fascinating indeed! Great review, Stefanie!
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Iliana, I know, right? I mean — no I don’t even want to think about it! Glad you enjoyed the review!
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Glad you warned me about the typos! Since I work in publishing myself, I try not to be too sniffy about them — statistically, if you’re putting out a significant quantity of books a year, some of them are going to end up with more mistakes and others with none — but they can be distracting. Meanwhile this book sounds ridiculously fascinating and I am going to grab it at the library as soon as possible. I WILL KNOW EVERYTHING ONE DAY STEFANIE.
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Jenny, the typos go away after the first quarter of the book, I think someone must have been asleep at the wheel. It’s a hard job and I don’t expect perfection all the time, but some of them were quite glaring. The book is great! Just the history of how we have viewed bacteria is interesting. And there is still so much we don’t know but this book feels like we are moving in a good direction. I hope you like it, it will move you further along the road to know everything! 😀
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