4.4.2 Microorganisms everywhere!

Humans being part of nature, rather than separate from it, microorganisms provide a useful analogy. We don’t just carry our own cells and DNA around with us, we host a large variety of microorganisms on and in our bodies. In the same way that soil is host to the majority of microorganisms in the world, our guts host the majority of microorganisms that inhabit us. And yes, there is an overlap between some of the types of microorganisms that choose to live within us, and those that inhabit the soil, especially in individuals that are in contact with soil. We exist in continuum with the rest of nature.

In this course we’ve focused on nutrition as one main benefit of food grown in healthy soil, but gut microorganisms are also affected both by the food we eat and how it has been produced. Plants are just like us, covered in and contain microorganisms. And so food carries with it microorganisms. Or at least it should. And of course these should be beneficial microorganisms rather than disease-causing ones. But what they’re hosting depends on how they’ve been grown.

In the same way that plants are dependent on microorganisms, so are we. As this exciting field of research rapidly grows, the evidence is mounting for microorganisms being crucial in health and disease, with links between who lives in our gut and risk of obesity, autoimmune diseases and cancer. And just like with plants, it works both ways. We don’t want to eliminate microorganisms – we need them, the beneficial ones, to function.