Microbiology and Daily Human Life

Microbiology is involved in many aspects of human daily life. The food eaten to the showerheads in the bathroom contain thousands of microbes. Microbiology is evident in our lives and it is reported through various media. News reports have articles about microbes just like a recent article from Times Magazine titled Overcoming Obesity by Alex Park.
 Park featured article is about the problem of obesity in America and how different scientists are thinking of new manners to combat this epidemic. The first part of article is sub titled: Why we get Fat: Seeking Clues in our Cells. In this part of the article it claims that people get fat because of the amount of stress in our daily lives, unhealthy eating habits, and our symbiotic relationship with microbes. It also states that people’s bacterial make up influence the amount of fat that one can store in the body. The second part of the article, The Bugs in your Gut, was about different types of bacteria in ones gut. These gut bacteria have a population in the trillions and they help curb ones appetite and keep off the fat pounds. The bacteria in skinny and obese people are at different levels. An experiment with a obese man who had gastric bypass surgery had a drastic change in the gut flora. A fluctuation different types of Bacteririodetes and Frimicutes where noted in the experiment. The third part of the article, Fat and Disease: the Missing Link. Park claims that the body fat releases different types of chemicals. Park states in the article, “fat cells are, for example, replete with macrophages, the immune cells that engulf foreign invaders and put the body’s other defensive cells into attack mode. For some reason, macrophages become hyperactive inside the fat cells of obese people, sending out signals to recruit other inflammatory factors.” Park also states that free fatty acids are broken down and remain in the blood stream for obese people. The last part of the article is called The Good Fat. This section is about the brown fat. Brown Fat is the collection of mitochondria dense fat. The world of microbiology is influences are lives to even to the extent of weight loss and weight gain. The article makes many good points about the microbes. The first part of the article Park discusses different types of bacteria in the intestinal tract of humans. This is true there are many different types of bacteria that live in the intestines called gut flora. (Insel, Turner, and Ross ) Park fails to mention that the intestinal tract is filled with more than bacteria. Bacteria make up roughly sixty percent of the microbes present in the intestines. (Insel, Turner, and Ross ) The other forty percent of the gut flora is composed of fungi and protozoa. Most of the bacteria in the gut flora cannot be cultured but many have been identified. (Insel, Turner, and Ross) Clostridium and Bacteroides are the two most common bacteria genera in the intestines but other bacteria like Escherichia coli are also present. There are more than 100 trillion gut floras located in the digestive tract. These microbes can live in a neutral pH between the ranges of six and eight. (Slonczewski, and Foster ) Since the small intestines and large intestines do not have any oxygen present the gut flora have to respire anaerobically. (Slonczewski, and Foster ) Theses bacteria are also in very dark location where sunlight is not available. This makes the majority of the bacteria present heterotrophs. (Slonczewski, and Foster ) They are not autotrophs because the absent of direct sunlight and they can’t make their own energy source, and the are not lithothrophs because they do not feed off of inorganic materials like Fe+3 (Slonczewski, and Foster ) . Instead they feed off the carbohydrates and other nutrients that are being digested. Park states that the food is absorbed through the small intestines with the help of the gut flora. The bacteria within the small intestines have many enzymes that break down carbohydrates that are passing through (Insel, Turner, and Ross ). The carbohydrates are broken down into smaller short chain fatty acids. These fatty acids then can be absorbed by the digestive tract and increase the health of the system. The body does most of its absorption in the small intestines but could not digest big polysacrides or starches without the help of the gut flora (Insel, Turner, and Ross ). The article states also stated that there was a shift from leanness to obesity in mice due to different phyla of bacteria. The lean mice had Bacterioeds and the obese mice had Frimicutes. The Bacterioeds are mostly known to be opportunistic pathogens. These pathogens are active only when the host has a low immunity. Frimicutesn are gram positive bacteria (Insel, Turner, and Ross ). The article states that macrophages are over stimulated in obese patients. It is correct that macrophages are a type of defense mechanisms against foreign entities but I disagree with the author. She states that fat tissue for an obese man sends out much more signals for the activation of macrophages than a lean man. Macrophages are released but when they are activated they are to get rid of the pathogen and it damages the surrounding tissue. (Slonczewski, and Foster ). If the fat tissue is being constantly destroyed by the macrophages that are released then the obese man should be lean instead of fat because there would not be any fat tissue. The fat tissue is also stated of being brown. The brown fat is scarce in the human body. ("Physorg") The brown fat is brown because of the dense number of brown colored mitochondria present. ("Physorg") Mitochondria’s are used to make energy, ATP, for the cell by having a Proton Motive Force (Slonczewski, and Foster ). The brown fat are high ineffective because they use a lot of energy and do not get much ATP synthesis (Slonczewski, and Foster ). Also the brown adipose tissues have to make a lot of energy so it can develop the gut flora that can properly digest food. This is possible because infants need a lot of heat to keep their body operating because after coming out of the womb the infant is not kept warm by the mother. The article touches upon many different aspect of microbiology. The microbes that exist in our digestive tract like the gut flora influence if one would be obese or lean. The adipose tissue can be dark because of the density of mitochondria’s is key for infants to get heat to keep their body temperature stable. The author does make other points that are less than agreeable like fat tissue in obese men hyper stimulate the activation signals for macrophages. The world has microbes involved with every aspect of our lives. They can be beneficial or harmful or live in symbiotic relationship with us and because they have so much influence in human daily life they are in every aspect of our media.

Slonczewski, Joan, and John Foster. Microbiology An evolving Sceince. 1. New York: WW. Norton, 2009. Print.

"The skinny on brown fat." Physorg. The Cell Press, April 6, 2010. Web. 6 Apr 2010. .

Insel, PAul, Elaine Turner, and Don Ross. Nutrtion 3rd editon. 3. 1. Jones and Bartlette, 2007. Print.