Tuesday, February 07, 2012
"Eating off the floor: How clean living is bad for you"
Scientific articles are often not easy to quote or create a synopsis.
This one conveys that creating an inbalance in bacterial diversity could well be the cause of many health issues...
This one conveys that creating an inbalance in bacterial diversity could well be the cause of many health issues...
From Scientific-American.com's article by Rob Dunn, I selected this as my "teaser" paragraph:
"Could the diversity of good bacteria in some rooms actually be reducing the density of bad bacteria? There is precedent for such an idea, though it comes from grasslands rather than hospitals or bedrooms. In grasslands and other outdoor habitats (Grasslands are an appropriate example for Kembel, who started off studying grassland diversity before moving on to hospital rooms), an enormous body of literature considers whether more diverse grasslands are harder for an invading life form to take over. The answer—though I will admit to summarizing a literature that includes hundreds, maybe thousands, of papers in six words— is, yes diversity helps to resist invasion. In those fields, diverse grasses efficiently use the resources invaders need, preventing them from gaining a foothold. Could having a diversity of bacteria in your home or hospital room not only make your immune system more likely to develop normally but also help to outcompete the bad news bugs in the first place? YES, YES, YES, the answer is definitely maybe5."
