Microbiome: Killing Bacteria with Antimicrobials and Antibotics may be Shortsighted
Recent research supports the idea that disease is caused by imbalances in the microbiome.
In the 1880’s French researcher Antoine Beauchamp echoed the thoughts
of the great physician Hippocrates’s that “all disease begins in the gut”
He went on to say that disease was simply an imbalance in what he called
the mini ecosystem of our body and that if you corrected the imbalance,
that disease would go away. In the book “Your Genius Body” Andrew
Rostenberg, D.C. addresses the fact that Modern (Western) medicine does
not look to the root cause of disease but instead treats the symptoms.
Modern medicine has progressed in large part by waging war against
germs— snuffing out microscopic disease-causing creatures before they
kill us.
The 19th-century discovery that microorganisms are the cause of
infectious disease—the leading cause of death at the time—led
scientists to the consensus (led by Louis Pasteur) that “germs” posed
a great danger to humanity, a stance that’s been woven into policy
and ideology to this day. Public health advancements in the 20th
century proved that controlling infectious outbreaks extended life
expectancy and reduced infant and maternal deaths.
It was an era heralded for great medical achievements.
Death rates rapidly declined—even before the introduction of
penicillin and vaccines—as public sanitation and better hygiene in
hospitals transformed public health. Mass antibiotic production came
in the 1940s, initially for wounded soldiers, then exploded into the
public sphere. These new antimicrobial weapons cured millions of
infections and saved many lives. However, antibiotics also came with
consequences that are squeezing today’s health care on two sides:
superbug infections and a rise in all diseases.
The microbial world is diverse. While it’s true that some microbes
cause disease, saying that all of them are killers would be like calling
all dogs killers because of a few.
Researchers have learned that thinking of microbes as pathogenic, or
disease- causing, is profoundly incorrect. In fact, the microbial world
encompasses bacteria, viruses, and fungi that largely promote health.
Human beings host a vast microbial community, or microbiome,
which forms a kind of detached organ with interactions that keep us
alive. These tiny creatures may not be cute, but they are essential.
“[There is] a consortium of organisms in us and on us and around us.
There are trillions of them,” Dr. Neil Stollman told fellow physicians at
a recent Malibu Microbiome Meeting. “When we lose bugs, we are at
risk of other bugs hurting us. They are intimately involved in our
immune system development. And we help them. We provide a home
for them and nutrients.”
Stollman is chairman of gastroenterology at Alta Bates Summit
Medical Center in Oakland, California and past chairman of the
American College of Gastroenterology.
Bugs Everywhere
Everyone has an individually unique microbiome, as well as distinct
microbiomes in different areas of their bodies. We have microbes, for
instance, on our skin and in our mouths, lungs, nasal passages,
urinary tract, and especially in our gastrointestinal tract, and some
of those microbes indeed are associated with illness. One database
offers 5,677 associations between 1,781 microbes and 542 human
diseases across more than 20 sites on the body.at their names are and what they do, and
possibly, they could be t
Not surprisingly, the gastrointestinal tract was associated with 37
percent of those disease associations, with the oral cavity next at less
than 10 percent. However, that doesn’t mean researchers understand
this realm all that thoroughly. Dr.
Sabine Hazan said more than 95 percent of microbes are still a
mystery. A gastroenterologist and researcher, she presented
microbiome discoveries from the past four years at the Malibu
Microbiome Meeting.
“We have no idea what their names are and what they do, and
possibly, they could be the culprit of a disease,” Hazan said. That also
means researchers don’t know the precise synergistic roles those
microbes play in the body that keep us alive and healthy. This
collection of microbes, or flora, remains largely a mystery though it is
an area of intense interest to researchers.
Tiny Organisms with Big Jobs
Microbiome studies tend to focus heavily on the gut, where our
microbes configure the majority of our immune system. High levels of
certain beneficial bacteria help us mount a robust response to invading
viruses, for example. We know now that a diversity of flora is
protective against disease. Other processes that happen in the gut are
critical to life, including metabolism, hormonal regulation, and
neurological function. Various microbes throughout the gut set off a
chain of signals to cells that are involved in hormone release and
metabolic processes such as insulin sensitivity, appetite, and fat
storage.
Metabolic disorders such as insulin resistance and diseases of the
heart and circulatory system, as well as endocrine disorders that
affect organs that rely on hormones, all lean on the microbiome.
Acceptance of the notion that the gut and mental health are
connected has ebbed and flowed for decades, but metabolic processes
instigated by bacteria can affect both the permeability of the gut
lining and flip on inflammatory pathways. Both of these can affect
mental health, as well as a plethora of other conditions and
physiological systems, and now have wide acknowledgment.
Undoing a History of Hygiene
Historically, even as recently as the COVID-19 outbreak, medicine
has been obsessed with pathogenic microbes, while commensal
(helpful) bacteria haven’t gotten credit for the grunt work they do to
keep us alive and healthy.
The problem is historical, in some sense. It goes back to our earliest
concepts of the microbial world, when doctors including Ignaz
Semmelweis hypothesized in the 1840s that physicians and medical
students were transmitting “death particles” from autopsy rooms
where they started their workday to clinics where they delivered
babies for the remainder of the day.
That gave rise to the practice of routine hand-washing, with
immediate and observable effects. But by the time we learned that
many microbes played beneficial roles, there were already massive
industries built around the war against microbes. Food processing,
chemically treated crops, and over-reliance on pharmaceuticals
destroyed massive volumes of health-sustaining microbes.
One result of this assault is the seemingly unending dilemma of deadly
superbugs that have become resistant to antibiotics. Allergies, asthma,
autoimmune disorders, and inflammatory bowel diseases have all
been linked to the oversterilization of our microbial environment.
Killing microbes is a multibillion- dollar industry. “Clearly, there are
those who will want to defend the past and even the status quo. That is
to be expected,” Dr. David Perlmutter, neurologist and fellow of the
American College of Nutrition, wrote in his book “Brain Maker.” “I
believe it is far more important to break the bonds of these constraints
and recognize that our most exciting and respected science is offering
us an incredible opportunity to regain our health through the force
wielded by the microbiome.”
Medicine’s Philosophical Shift
Medicine is confronted with a crossroads: keep on the current antimicrobial path or reset our medical paradigm around the reality that
our various microbiomes help sustain us while also fighting off
infection and disease.
Many of the rapidly growing diseases we’re contending with today—
such as autism and autoimmune disorders—have now been linked to
microbiome health. A combination of lifestyle factors—from foods
that feed the wrong microbes, to routine chemical exposures, and
unnecessary antibiotics—have undoubtedly taken a toll on our
symbiotic microbes and health, Hazan said.
“Have we in essence killed our microbiome? Could it be maybe we’re
overdoing it?” she asked.
Concepts that include precision health and personalized nutrition
hinge on a broad understanding of the gut microbiome, a race that
has spurred investment in new companies with promises that have
far outpaced the available research.
Scientists at the Malibu Microbiome Meeting shared absurd claims of
products that insinuate one single probiotic can reverse specific
diseases.
“To simply believe you’re going to take one pill of one particular
bacteria and it’s going to solve your problem and provide some
beautiful homeostasis to your microbial ecosystem is absurdly
simplistic and is absolutely not true,” Stollman said.
And yet, there are also miraculous case studies indicating incredible
promise. Trials are underway, at rapid rates. In fact, more than 80
percent of microbiome research has occurred since 2017, according to
Stollman.
“There’s a real mania about the biome. I think the mania is also based
not as much on ‘can we improve our health?’ but rather ‘can we
diagnose an illness and treat an illness?’” he said.
The challenge ahead is significant. Beyond fixing outdated medical
protocols, like indiscriminate antibiotic use, there is the staggering
volume of microbes and microbial interactions that need to be
understood. Considering that our cells perform impossible complex
chemistry at a scale and intricacy beyond anything modern science can
match, imagine the additional complexity of trillions of
microorganisms doing something similar.
Here at The Darling Center we firmly believe that Hippocrates and
Antione Beauchamp had the right idea. That is why we dig deep to
find the root cause of our patients illnesses and help the body heal
itself.
Read more about our integrative medicine here!
