You're just 10% human.
The must-read summary of “10% Human: How Your Body's Microbes Hold the Key to Health and Happiness,” by Alanna Collen.
There are over 100 trillion microbes living in your body. They live on your skin, in your mouth, nose, ears, esophagus, stomach, and your gut. These microbes are not a random mix of species. They own special genes that carry out many metabolic and protective functions for your body, extending the functions of human genes. Scientists call this dynamic community of microbes the microbiota and the totality of their genes the microbiome.
In 10% Human, biologist Alanna Collen shows how this community of microbes influences our weight, our immune system, and our mental health. Many modern diseases—obesity, autism, mental illness, digestive disorders, allergies, autoimmune diseases—arise because we have an unhealthy microbiota. The good news is, unlike human genes, we can change our microbiome for the better.
Read this revelatory and indispensable guide to the human microbiome.
This guide includes:
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There are over 100 trillion microbes living in your body. They live on your skin, in your mouth, nose, ears, esophagus, stomach, and your gut. These microbes are not a random mix of species. They have special genes that carry out many metabolic and protective functions for your body, extending the functions of human genes. Scientists call this dynamic community of microbes the microbiota and the totality of their genes the microbiome.
Your genes make you what you are. They influence what you look like on the outside and how your body works on the inside. They contain the information to make proteins that form the structure of our body and keep us alive.
The genome of an organism is the complete set of DNA, including all its genes. The size of the genome and the number of genes it contains differ from species to species. Viruses have a few thousand letters of DNA and a few genes. The human genome comprises 3.2 billion letters of DNA, with around 21,000 genes. It is the same size as a mouse genome, but ten times smaller than the salamander genome.
The human microbiome contains genes that perform many functions the human genes cannot. It is an energy-efficient extension of the human genome. Each gene within the human genome comes at an energetic cost because every time a cell subdivides, it must replicate the entire genome (21,000 genes) within the cell.
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French
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