Much has been in the news lately about the human microbiome and the implications this research has for our health. For those of you not familiar with the term microbiome, it is the sum of all normal, non-pathogenic bacteria that live on and inside our own bodies on a daily basis. These are very large and diverse populations, so much so that bacterial cells outnumber the cells of our own bodies ten-to-one and it is estimated that humans are host to literally thousands of species of bacteria. This doesn’t even begin to cover the number of viruses that may live in us long term; referred to as a virome. It seems today that we are far more complex organisms than we ever imagined. But what does this complexity mean? Does it have implications in how we should treat disease or why we become sick in the first place? Continue reading An ecosystem unto ourselves →