10% Human: How Your Body's Microbes Hold the Key to Health and HappinessAn evolutionary biologist and science writer explores the widely-ignored role our gut microbes play in our health and well-being. You are just 10% human. For every one of the cells that make up the vessel that you call your body, there are nine impostor cells hitching a ride. You are not just flesh and blood, muscle and bone, brain and skin, but also bacteria and fungi. Over your lifetime, you will carry the equivalent weight of five African elephants in microbes. You are not an individual but a colony. Until recently, we had thought our microbes hardly mattered, but science is revealing a different story, one in which microbes run our bodies; remaining a healthy human is impossible without them. In this riveting, shocking, and beautifully written book, biologist Alanna Collen draws on the latest scientific research to show how our personal colony of microbes influences our weight, immune system, mental health, and even our choice of partner. She argues that so many of our modern diseases—obesity, autism, mental illness, digestive disorders, allergies, autoimmune afflictions, and even cancer—have their root in our failure to cherish our most fundamental and enduring relationship: that with our individual colony of microbes. The good news is that unlike our human cells, we can change our microbes for the better. Life—and your body—will never seem the same again. |
Other editions - View all
10% Human: How Your Body's Microbes Hold the Key to Health and Happiness Alanna Collen No preview available - 2015 |
10% Human: How Your Body’s Microbes Hold the Key to Health and Happiness Alanna Collen No preview available - 2015 |
10% Human: How Your Body's Microbes Hold the Key to Health and Happiness Alanna Collen No preview available - 2015 |
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acid acne adults Akkermansia allergies animals antibiotics autism autoimmune diseases babies bacteria bacterium Bacteroidetes become behaviour bifidobacteria birth blood body Borody bowel brain breast-feeding breast-milk C-section Caesarean calories cancer cause cent changes chemicals clinical coeliac disease colonised common decades Dhurandhar diarrhoea diff digestive disorder doctors drugs effect Ellen energy enzymes faecal transplants faeces fibre Firmicutes genes genetic genome germ-free mice gut microbes gut microbiota hormones host human hygiene hygiene hypothesis immune cells immune system impact infection infectious diseases inflammation insulin intake irritable bowel syndrome Lactobacillus large intestine lean leptin living MacFabe metabolic microbes microbiome milk molecules mouse normal nutrition obesity obesity epidemic oligosaccharides overweight pathogens patients penicillin perhaps probiotics produced protein risk scientists skin small intestine species stool suffer sugar syndrome triclosan twenty-first-century illnesses type 1 diabetes vaginal virus warblers weight gain weight loss women zonulin