Microbes: The Good, the Bad and the Very Ugly

Our bodies play host to millions and millions of microbial forms. Many of them are good for us and many others are completely harmless if we are healthy at a cellular level and our immune system is working as it should be. There are, however, microbial forms - viral, fungal and bacterial - that are becoming more prevalent and more pathogenic and most worryingly of all, more resistant to conventional drugs and treatments. It also seems that more humans are becoming more susceptible to these infections and less able to fend them off and completely remove them from their systems. If you have health issues and nothing you do seems to help then microbes could be ruining your day!

It is believed that by the age of 20 the average person already has between one and two diseases infecting them, between four and six by age 40, and between eight and twelve by the age of 70. Just think of every single microbial spore or viral particle as another hungry mouth to feed.

The strength of your immune system and the state of your internal environment dictates how well you fend off microbial attacks in the first place, and determines how fast microbes are allowed to replicate should they manage to penetrate the various defence systems. Microbes are absolutely everywhere and are transferred by talking, on our food, in the air we breathe, carried by insects, from objects, fired at us when people sneeze and are transferred when people touch us, especially when various parts of our anatomy enter various parts of other people's anatomy for various reasons.

Some microbes like it hot, some like it cold, some salty, some alkaline, some acidic; some need oxygen, others thrive without oxygen; some get killed in sunlight, some like particular nutrients (which is why they will be found in certain organs of the body), some feed on what others would call waste, some produce toxic by-products, some can make us healthier and some of them have the potential to kill us if given half a chance.

So let's take a closer look at these invisible life forms...

The good

Without bacteria nothing on the planet earth would survive or ever get broken down. They are quite simply nature's recyclers. Name any natural substance and the chances are that there is a microbe out there that loves living in it or feeding on it. Many bacteria live harmlessly on our skin and inside of us helping to maintain balance, like the hundreds of different varieties of bacteria in our colon that perform so many different beneficial functions. Some bacteria serve to keep more unfavorable bacteria in check which actually helps our immune system to stay on top of things.

Being exposed to microbes is important as it allows your immune system to build up a natural resistance to the microbes that surround you in everyday life. In nature when everything is in balance, microbes help things function, cause no trouble and happily set about keeping everything naturally clean. When the external environment and our internal environment become imbalanced, and when alien microbial forms are suddenly introduced from other places (i.e. through travel), that's when the problems begin....

The bad

The common cold, food poisoning, measles, mumps, pneumonia, chicken pox, candida, tooth decay, sore throats, athlete's foot and a whole host of sexually transmitted diseases all have specific viruses, bacteria, yeast or fungi behind them. Most people are able to fight them off, but if you have a compromised immune system they can all be potential killers. Think of them as uninvited guests who turn up to your house party without any drink (your immune system is the bouncer on the door by the way), get drunk on your booze, leave their mess all over the place, break your valuables, upset all your guests, and then refuse to leave at the end of the night and hang around for the rest of your life watching you clean up after them.

Bacterial infections are usually treated conventionally with antibiotics, which unfortunately kill all the good microbes too, and more and more infections are becoming more resistant to antibiotics anyway. So how do you know if you are being affected? Symptoms can include energy loss, weight loss, poor digestion, boils, acne, itching, spots, dandruff, coughs, sore throats, achy joints, headaches, urinary tract infections, body odor, bad breath, diarrhea, foul smelling flatulence and a whole host of other unwanted, non-diagnosable, hard-to-pinpoint and usually ignored symptoms.

The very ugly

The 'super bugs': think ebola, rabies, Marburg Virus, MRSA, nvCJD (the human version of BSE), gangrene, meningitis and most recently E. coli, which is causing hundreds of deaths due to infections contracted in hospitals, and is resistant to all but one type of antibiotic. The establishment answer to them at the time of writing is to remove flowers from hospital wards! Due to genetic engineering all of these super bugs have the potential of becoming even worse, making Dustin Hoffman's film Outbreak seem like a walk in the park!