Tag: Microbes

Why Scientists Are Obsessing Over the Bugs in Our Stool

In this series, we’ll share how the latest developments on this medical frontier are transforming our approaches to illness and offering new strategies to heal and prevent disease. Previously: The roles that microbes play in the body have been linked to processes that appear protective against disease. When disease happens, the link is dysbiosis, or…


How the Gut Cures and Creates Disease—A Medical Frontier

In this series, “Cultivating Our Gut Microbiome to Stifle Disease,” we’ll share how the latest developments on this medical frontier are transforming our approaches to illness and offering new strategies to heal and prevent disease. Previously: Many of the most important medical advances of previous decades were based on containing the threat of infectious disease….


COVID-19: A Wakeup Call for Our Dying Microbiome

Our microbiome is dying. This essential collection of bacteria, fungi, and viruses that live in our body and on our skin is disappearing. Herbicides like glyphosate are partly to blame, but special attention must be paid to certain medical interventions, research suggests. Enough warning signs have arisen that researchers are raising alarm to fix, protect,…


Mamas, Your Microbes May Affect Your Children’s Health

Riddle us this: Two girls—best friends—grow up in the same small town, go to the same school, and have similar diets, lifestyle practices, and even extracurricular activities. Both of their moms are committed to feeding their daughters organically grown whole, real, healthy foods; making sure they get lots of time outside to play in the…


Extreme Policies for Organic Farming Ignore Soil Science: Former USDA Soil Scientist

Under pressure from environmentalists, some governments have implemented extreme nitrogen fertilizer restrictions that ignore the time needed to restore a depleted soil microbiology, resulting in protests from some scientists and farmers who are seeing the concerning impacts of such restrictions. According to organic farming proponent and former U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) soil scientist Kelly…


Gardening Is Good for Your Microbes, Muscles, and Mood

There are few activities more nourishing for both body and soul than planting and tending a garden. Gardeners have long known that the physical process of working with soil, water, and sunlight to coax a tiny seed through the miracle of growth and maturity has effects that go well beyond the pleasure of eating a…


Our Marvelous Microbes

Each human is an ecosystem, and we play host to countless microscopic life forms. As strange as it may sound if you’re not a microbiologist, our bacteria are an integral part of who we are, participating in nearly every aspect of our health. My mother was a preeminent scientist who held the microbial world in…