The Human Microbiome Project

The same friend who told me about outsourcing health care told me about a fascinating research project that he is working on as an employee of a bio-tech company on the East Coast.

You've heard of the Human Genome Project which catelouges all the genes in the human species. This is a little different: they are looking at all the organisms that live in the human species.

The average human body, consisting of about 10 to the thirteen power (10,000,000,000,000 or about ten trillion) cells, has about ten times that number of microorganisms in the gut. Somewhere between 300 and 1000 different species live in the gut,[3] with most estimates at about 500. These microorganisms are helpful the human existence: the microorganisms perform a host of useful functions, such as fermenting unused energy substrates, training the immune system, preventing growth of harmful species, regulating the development of the gut, producing vitamins for the host (such as biotin and vitamin K), and producing hormones to direct the host to store fats. However, in certain conditions, some species are thought to be capable of causing disease by causing infection or increasing cancer risk for the host.(see references on wikipedia.org)

The Human MicroBiome Project is trying to figure out what all of those microorganisms are, just as the Human Genome Project sought to determine all of the genes in our genome.

The process is not a pleasant one, definitely a study I would not sign up for. Participants are given a strong antibiotic that kills all of the microorganisms living in the digestive tract, and then they are asked to collect stool samples over the next weeks as the flora repopulate in the gut. Then the lucky lab techs get to analyze the stool samples.

Many holistic oriented, health conscious people, especially mothers, are aware of the importance of maintaining healthy intestinal flora for proper immune and health functioning. The Human Microbiome Project has the potential to make that information for well-known and accessible to the public, providing evidence for the importance of microorganisms in association with health and disease with applications across the medical and healthcare fields.

Daddies are Free from Poopy Diaper Changes

Of all the things that are blog-worthy from the book "Baby Matters: What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Caring for Your Baby," I'm choosing this topic first.

Linda Palmer writes on page 124:

"We also know that when mothers stay close to baby and are exposed to baby's saliva via kisses and stools during diaper changes, this helps mother provide appropriate immune factors to baby through her milk. The "enteromammary pathway" is the name given to the process by which mother supplies specific immune factors in her milk according to what she has been exposed to....High levels of sanitation between the nursing mother and her infant can prevent this valuable transaction from occuring."

That, to me, is an interesting fact. I didn't realize that there was a biological purpose to diaper changes and handling poop. Of course, when I shared that finding with my husband his first response was, "You mean I don't have to change diapers anymore?"

Aside from the egalitarian virtue of sharing responsibility with the mother of one's child, why not?