Essay On Bacteria

Hats off to bacteria! This article summarizes that bacteria are good for our body and help us function a lot better. Bacteria live in our guts, in our mouths, and on our skin. Overuse of antibiotics has disturbed the bacterial ecosystem, possibly so much that it is irreversible. In 1999 Lawrence Brandt a professor of medicine and surgery at the Albert Einstein College of medicine had success when trying to help a patient combat diarrhea induced by clostridium difficile. A patient developed diarrhea after taking a course of antibiotics for sinusitis; nothing could shake her C.difficile infection. Brandt reasoned the initial antibiotic treatment had killed gut bacteria that promote digestive health; not knowing which strain to replace, he transplanted stool form her husband. That night she reported marked improvement- for the first time in six months. This procedure has helped patients, but hopefully in the future doctors will be able to administer the particular strain of bacteria that is needed. 99% of the bacteria we harbor are resistant to culture in the lab. It was this impossible to study bacteria until the last decade or so, when DNA sequencing techniques allowed researchers to obtain gene sequences from as little as one bacterial cell. With this researchers found that bacteria cells in our bodies outnumber our human cells. Bacterial exposure throughout our lifetime is needed for our wellbeing, thinking, and functioning, contributing to conditions such as diabetes, obesity, allergies, asthma, and atherosclerosis, as well as to anxiety and mood and cognition disorders. These conditions have become more prominent because of our obsession with sanitation has eliminated the exposure to bacteria humans used to routinely get throu...

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...le because it explains how much damage antibiotics do to the body. People are over dosing on antibiotics more and more every day and what is to stop it from getting worse for our future. We cannot yet identify the individual strains of bacteria person may need yet, and lots of studies still need to be done. the ethical implications involved with this article is that people will not believe that bacteria is good no matter what, people will be afraid it harms their children and that they need to be saved and kept away from them. This article has been eye opening that bacteria are needed to keep us healthy and in good working condition, and the fact that they are around in greater numbers than cells in our body is mind-blowing. This article will serve as good help for the future and for people now to learn bacteria is good and should not be eliminated from their lives.