Our Microbiota

Everything about the human body is a marvel in cooperation. Every single cell of our body is aware of and is in cooperation with every other cell to achieve many functions. How are our cells made? It is postulated that many different unicellular life forms cooperated in forming our cells.

The story goes like this. Our original cell which is supposed to be an archea, ingested another type of cell for food and suddenly realized that it is better to keep its freshly ingested food alive. It turned out that the ingested cell did a better job at transforming energy for itself and to space. A good example for this is a mitochondria which still retains its original bacterial DNA, attesting to its bacterial origin. 

The freshly ingested cell and its host had to make many adjustments for the mitochondria to continue living, thriving and eventually, multiplying within that cell. To create more efficiencies, most of the mitochondrial DNA has been transferred to the host nucleus but the mitochondria still retains a bit of its original bacterial DNA. The bacterial cytoplasm is covered by a bacterial membrane over which there is a host cell membrane which encloses the mitochondria making it distinct from the human cell. 

As there is cooperation inside a cell, so there is cooperation between human cells, there is a cooperation between human and non-human cells in many areas of the body. In effect, we are miracles of cooperation between related and unrelated beings.

When we look at human beings, our microbiota helps us make many vitamins, proteins, some neurotransmitters and a lot of other vital molecules that we use for many purposes. This fruitful cooperative existence can sometimes be disturbed by external and internal entities and it can cause many disorders. It is proposed that many autoimmune diseases are caused by disturbances within our cellular mitochondria. 

Various extraneous and internal factors can tamper with the integrity of the mitochondria, which are very delicate organelles. This may result in damage of the mitochondrial membranes which results in mitochondrial DNA escaping into the cytoplasm and then into the circulation. This DNA being of bacterial origin is recognized by the human cells as foreign or nonself and steps are taken to deal with the bacterial DNA. Usually, an immune response is initiated against the mitochondrial DNA which results in autoimmune conditions. 

In other cases, changes in the production of vital molecules could result in disorders. It can also change the permeability of the gut resulting in leaky gut. Modern medicine uses various stop gap methods such as external supplements of vitamins as well as supplementation of various freeze dried bacterial mixes to take care of bacterial load losses. Sometimes the intestinal normal flora can be replaced by a non native or native species disproportionately. This  displacement results in many gastrointestinal disorders. When we use antibiotic, our gut bacteria may fails. A fecal transplant might be tried to replace abnormal bacteria with normal bacterial flora.

When we think about the human microbiota in terms of biophysics then we can find an entirely different area of Interest. The gut microbiota can produce ultraviolet radiation from within. This radiation spectra is at a frequency that is a little lower than the ultraviolet frequency that we receive from our son. That makes the microbiota inside the gut our internal Sun. We do not know what these microbial ultraviolet radiation can do to the human body or what information it conveys to the other cells, and what this information is capable of eliciting within our cells. These informations justify ancient Indian medical claims that all diseases starts in the gut.