Perhaps there is also a direct correlation between this microbiome and longevity in the so-called "blue zones" of the world like Okinawa, Sardinia etc.
IIRC there are several of the "Blue Zones" where just bad government records. (People who had incorrect birth dates, or had already died and the government just didn't know about it)
Jose DeSanquin Demarco of Bolivia is now the world’s oldest man at 117, he attributes his health to 10 hours daily in the sun and fields farming quinoa.
Photographed here, Jose’s 90 year old wife holds their newborn twins.
my only credential is a bio-eng degree, but i read a lot and hope to put together a novel or something to get ppl thinking about it, until we can find a way to test the hypothesis
The symbiotic relationship between Humans and their resident Microbiome (especially the gut microbiome) is already a well-studied subject. But it can certainly do with more popularization :-)
5) The Second Brain: A Groundbreaking New Understanding of Nervous Disorders of the Stomach and Intestine by Michael Gershon. This is a must-read neuro-psychology book.
6) Gut: The inside story of our body’s most under-rated organ by Giulia Enders. Another must-read book.
7) Finally; i came to know (have not browsed/read) of this definitive textbook Fundamentals of Microbiome Science: How Microbes Shape Animal Biology by Angela Douglas (via her Microbiomes: A Very Short Introduction Oxford series book) - https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691160344/fu...
yes! i'm hoping to understand more about the beginning of this co-existence, to maybe better work out ways to make their metabolism interact with ours in more helpful ways, will start that list from 7 backwards :) ty!
The Fundamentals of Microbiome Science by Angela Douglas seems to be the definitive/authoritative work on the subject by a recognized expert (will be getting this book :-) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_E._Douglas
Checkout her other books too. They all seem fascinating.
The three things i find most fascinating in Biology are 1) Neuroscience, 2) Immune Systems and 3) Microbiome on our bodies. Together; they literally define who we are (mentally and physically), how we survive and how we coexist with our environment and yet there is no one book which brings everything together.
As a kid, i had read two classic books from the Soviet-era Mir Publishers Science for Everyone series which fired my imagination and sparked a lifelong interest in the Life Sciences. You might also find these (and others from the series) interesting (though old);
Deep insights into the gut microbial community of extreme longevity in south Chinese centenarians by ultra-deep metagenomics and large-scale culturomics - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41522-022-00282-3
We are what we eat.