The scientific community takes note of the very important role of the populations of microbes which live in us, largely in our intestines, but also in the mouth, on the skin. Our microbiota plays a role in the diseases that we report (allergies, cancer), and even probably in our behavior. Decryption with Mathilde Fontez, editor-in-chief of the scientific magazine Epsiloon.
franceinfo: We are talking about microbes today, viruses, bacteria, but not Covid: microbes that live in us?
Mathilde Fontez: Yes, we know, we’ve been talking about it for several years now: the famous microbiota, this colony of microbes that populate our intestines and protect us from disease, it’s our ecosystem. Doctors also commonly prescribe probiotic drugs to preserve them – when you have to take antibiotics, for example.
But we are only now becoming aware of the magnitude of this population of microbes, and its importance for our health. This realization is on the front page this week of the famous magazine of scientific publications. Science.
These microbes not only play a role in our digestion…
Nope ! It’s the least we can say. First, we discovered that it wasn’t just in our intestines – even though that’s the largest population. There are also some in our mouth, on our skin, in our nose. Even in our lungs, which were long thought to be a sterile zone.
And their number is colossal: there are 10 million microbes on every square centimeter of our hands. 10,000 billion in our whole body: we have as many as cells! Above all, researchers have discovered that they play a very important role in many mechanisms: in our immunity, in our allergies, in many diseases: Alzheimer’s, cancers, cardiovascular diseases.
In fact, isn’t there a part of medicine that isn’t interested in the microbiota?
That’s quite right. This is moreover what the four researchers who sign this article note today in Science : all fields of medicine have become aware that it is necessary to understand the role of these microbes in order to understand our metabolism. They are even studied in neurology.
They would have an influence on our brain?
It has not yet been shown in humans. But in animals yes. The microbiota appears to be associated with the development and functioning of the brain. Even modifying emotional and cognitive behavior: researchers have just shown, for example, that it modulates the anxiety of mice. We have also seen that they affect the choice of sexual partners in the fly.
Our microbes could therefore directly influence our behavior, our character. And what the specialists are saying today is that we have to study them like an ecosystem: we’re talking about understanding the ecology of our body. It’s a bit New Age said like that, but it has become a major challenge for medicine: studying the dialogue between the communities of microbes that inhabit us, And between these communities and us, to better understand how we work, and better heal us.