Comments on: Every Man an Island, Pt. 1

By: We are the many « Thoughts about thinking

We are the many « Thoughts about thinking — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 17:41:17 +0000

[...] 7, 2009 at 5:42 pm (science) (bacteria, food, human, science, weight) This news is related to the research I did when working at BioSS in [...]

By: Iddo

Iddo — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 04:37:16 +0000

p : I have a maybe stupid question. We know an adult is about 60Kg, but he/she has only 10^13 cells according to your post. The 10^14 bacterial cells are approximately 1.5 Kg. It doesn’t make sense to me. Though most of our body is water, how could the ‘dry body’ be much less than 1.5 Kg if we assume the cells have nearly the same weight?

Therein lies the rub: bacterial cells and human cells do not have the same weight. Human cells outweigh bacterial cells by x1000. A bacterial cell weight about 10^-12 grammes, a human cell is 10^-9 grammes or so. If the typical human outweighs his / her bacterial cells by 100, the numbers come about just right.

By: p

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 03:55:56 +0000

I have a maybe stupid question. We know an adult is about 60Kg, but he/she has only 10^13 cells according to your post. The 10^14 bacterial cells are approximately 1.5 Kg. It doesn’t make sense to me. Though most of our body is water, how could the ‘dry body’ be much less than 1.5 Kg if we assume the cells have nearly the same weight?

By: idoerg

idoerg — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 20:41:26 +0000

tetsu96 : @Jimmy That’s exactly what I thought at first. Clorox and Hydrogen Peroxide are probably a bad idea, but I wonder if an Antibiotic detox followed by reintroducing certain bacteria (acidophilus as example) would be an effective way to “reboot” a person’s gut. Or would it do more harm then good? Maybe I’ll spend time with sick people until I catch something to justify this experiment.

One thing Gordon's group did in the first paper was exactly that. Only with mice. They took germ free mice and inoculated them with bacterial populations taken from lean and obese mice. The germ free inoculated with obese mice bacteria gained more weight than those inoculated with lean mice. Although statistically significant, the weight gain difference was not that large.

By: tetsu96

tetsu96 — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 20:21:17 +0000

@Jimmy That's exactly what I thought at first. Clorox and Hydrogen Peroxide are probably a bad idea, but I wonder if an Antibiotic detox followed by reintroducing certain bacteria (acidophilus as example) would be an effective way to "reboot" a person's gut. Or would it do more harm then good? Maybe I'll spend time with sick people until I catch something to justify this experiment.

By: Jimmy

Jimmy — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 15:28:24 +0000

So, basically, if I ingest something that will kill off these Firmicutes bacteria, then I’ll slow down the availability of the simple sugars that are making me fat? Huh, so, what fits the bill to kill bacteria – clorox seems like a bad choice, I’ll go with hydrogen peroxide. Thanks!

By: Emac2

Emac2 — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 15:19:42 +0000

Keith – Logical interpretation?

I think you miss the point if you think this has anything to do with who is to blame.

A lot of thin people eat too much as well and this helps explain why these people do not lose weight while some fat people can’t even lose weight when they diet – especially if they diet by eating low fat high carb foods.

By: Chan

Chan — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 15:00:13 +0000

I’m sorry but I’d have to agree with Keith. This sounds so much like scientific holistic/new age interpretation. I have always maintained that effective digestion is a product of two main mechanisms, physically by chewing and chemically by enzymes and overwhelming by HCL (stomach acid). Nutrition is absorbed in the upper digestive tract where the population of bacteria is low or non-existence. For people with large population of gut bacteria, they either consume too much food or the two mechanisms broke down, leaving undigested food for bacteria to consume.

The bacteria are there to benefit themselves mostly.

As for strains of bacteria in certain type of people, the observed evidence doesn’t always imply a cause.

On an unrelated note, I have a cure for the common cold. Check it out – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UVHeULP1JA

By: Keith - Hermosa

Keith - Hermosa — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 14:14:30 +0000

The logical interpretation is that the human body cannot keep up with
the digestion of absurd amounts of food (2 to 10 times as much as a
human is supposed to eat), thereby leaving undigested food in the
stomach. That undigested food becomes an available food source for
bacteria who take advantage of its presence. This is not the same
thing as “fat people are being fed more by bacteria,” implying, of course, that it’s not their fault.

These “scientists” should go into finance. Wall Street is looking for some sharp minds like these. It’s this sort of deep thinking that has blown up the world’s economy.

By: Paul Crowley

Paul Crowley — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 13:24:37 +0000

The scientific measure is of course kilojoules.

So when a thin person eats a slice of bread, where does the energy that they don’t make use of go?