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Flashcards in Missing Microbes Deck (45)
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1
Q

What are considered some modern plagues?

A

Obesity, childhood diabetes, asthma, hay fever, food allergies, esophageal reflux and cancer, celiac diasease, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, autism, eczema

2
Q

What are the conditions of today’s world like compared to the lethal plagues of the past?

A

The lethal plagues of the past strict fast and hard but today they are chronic conditions that diminish and degrade their victims’ quality of life for decades

3
Q

How has type 1 diabetes changed?

A

Has been doubling in incidence about every twenty years across the industrialized world

Also striking younger children

4
Q

What do the rise in chronic conditions suggest?

A

Children are experiencing levels of immune dysfunction never seen before

5
Q

What is the most popular explanation for the ride in childhood illness?

A

Hygiene hypothesis ~ modern plagues are happening because we have made our world too clean and the result is that our children’s immune systems have become quiescent and are prone to false alarms and friendly fire

6
Q

The microorganisms that make a living in and on our bodies, massive assemblages of competing and cooperating microbes

A

Microbiome

7
Q

Where do microbes thrive in/on our bodies?

A

Mouth, gut, nasal passage, ear canal, on the skin, vagina

8
Q

Why are parts of our microbiome disappearing?

A

1) . Overuse of antibiotics in humans and animals
2) . Cesarean sections
3) . Widespread use of sanitizer sand antiseptics

9
Q

How does the loss of our microbiome affect us?

A
  • changes our development
  • affects our metabolism
  • immunity
  • cognition
10
Q

A serious inflammation of the nervous system

A

Meningitis

11
Q

A genus of spiral shaped bacteria

Their helical shape helps them penetrate the gelatin like mucus that lines the gastrointestinal tract

A

Campylobacter

12
Q

Affected pregnant sheep and cattle causing them to abort

Rarely infects humans

A

Campylobacter fetus

13
Q

What is helicobacter pylori?

A

Found in the stomach

Can cause gastritis and ulcers

Also part of our normal gut flora and plays a critical role in our health

14
Q

What’s a key step in restoring our missing microbes?

A

Reduce the overuse of antibiotics in children

15
Q

Domain of bacteria

Single cell organisms that lack a nucleus

A

Prokaryotes

16
Q

Single cells with a nucleus and other organelles that provide building blocks for more complex, multicellular forms of life

A

Eukaryotes

17
Q

What are the classes of microbes

A

Bacteria (prokaryotes)
Archaea
Eukaryotes

18
Q

Not alive
Propagate by invading and co-opting living cells
Most target bacterial cells

A

Virus

19
Q

What is one possible way to treat bacterial diseases in humans

A

Involves harnessing phages~ viruses that kill bacteria

20
Q

What is an important feature of microbial life?

A

They can lurk for long periods of time in small numbers and then spontaneously blood

21
Q

What do microbes do to make the planet habitable?

A

Decompose the dead

Convert inert nitrogen in the atmosphere into a form of free nitrogen

22
Q

Bacteria living stably together

A

Consortium

23
Q

Microbes that can form gelatin like layers surrounding themselves

Form thick gels called…

Explains bacterial persistence in harsh circumstances

A

Biofilms

24
Q

When does the development of your microbiome begin?

A

Immediately at the moment of birth

Develops in the first few years of life

25
Q

Do we all have the same microbiome?

A

No every creature has coevolved with its own collection of microbes that carry out many metabolic and protective functions

26
Q

Are microbiomes diverse?

A

Diversity is critical

High diversity affords protection to all species within the ecosystem because their interactions create robust webs for capturing and circulating resources

27
Q

What does the loss of diversity do to a microbiome?

A

Loss of diversity leads to disease or to collapse of the system when keystone species~ones that exert a disproportionately large effect on the environment relative to their abundance~are lost

28
Q

How many human cells and bacterial cells do we have?

A

30 trillion human

100 trillion bacterial and fungal

70-90% of all our cells are nonhuman

29
Q

What are traits that allow microbes to survive in humans?

A
  • ability to survive acidity
  • exploit certain foods
  • to prefer dry over wet conditions or vice versa
30
Q

Where do most microbes make their living in humans?

A

Intestinal tract, beginning from your mouth

31
Q

Are there more differences in our human genes or microbial genes?

A

Microbial genes

32
Q

What is the richest zone in the mouth for microbes?

A

Gingival crevice, the interface between the tooth and gum

33
Q

Where does smell/body odor mostly come from?

A

Mostly microbial in origin

Causes odors in mouth armpits and groin

34
Q

How does H. Pylori help the body?

A

Makes acid and hormones

Helps with the state of immunity

35
Q

Where do the majority of your microbes live?

A

In the colon

Break down fibers and digest starch

Some of their products feed us (short chain fatty acids)

36
Q

What do microbes help you do with their products?

A
  • maintain stable blood pressure via specialized receptors located in blood vessels
  • metabolize drugs
  • make vitamin K, which is needed for blood to clot
37
Q

How does lactobacilli shield the vagina?

A

By producing lactic acid, which lowers the pH, making it slightly acidic and less hospitable to pathogens

38
Q

How do periods affect microbes in the vagina?

A
  • during most of the month- L. inners

- during period-L. Gasseri

39
Q

What is the most important service your microbes provide?

A

Immunity

40
Q

Is based on the microbes that are already in your body, your long term residents, inhibiting outsiders through various mechanisms

A

Microbial immunity

41
Q

What is an essential property of your resident organisms?

A

They resist invaders

42
Q

How does your diet change your microbes?

A

It doesn’t much~ a persons gut microbiome is relatively stable

43
Q

Genes that are routine and necessary for life

A

Housekeeping genes

44
Q

Rare microbial species

Can exploit an unusual food chemical that others can’t

Provide genetic protection against threats, such as a new plague

A

Contingency microbes

45
Q

Sheds a light on the phenomenon of cooperation

Coevolved systems appear to select for individuals who largely play by the rules

A

Game theory