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Understanding Bacteria
When we talk about bacteria, we talk about the Kingdom Bacteria AND the Kingdom Archaea.
To understand the development of bacteria, we have to go back in time. The earth is about 4.6 billion years old. The oldest rocks (around 3.86 billion years old) have been found in the Itsag Gneiss Complex in Greenland... and some ancient rocks contain microfossils/fossilized remains of cells.
Where did the first cells come from?
Because all cells are constructed in similar ways, it is hypothesized that all cells have descended from a common ancestor, the universal ancestor of all life. Evolution of the first cellon Earth (over 3.8 billion years ago)may have taken several hundred million years to occur. Once the first cells arose, their growth and division formed populations. Evolution could then select for improvements and diversification of the early life forms. Through billions of years of evolution, a huge diversity of cells types appeared.
Prokaryotic cells (bacteria) constitute the major portion of biomass on Earth and they are key reservoirs of essential nutrients for life.
The majority of microorganisms are not harmful to humans. Many are beneficial - carrying out processes that are of immense value to human society.
They play major roles in energy production. Natural gas (methane) is a product of bacterial activity, arising from the metabolism of methanogenic microorganisms. Pthototrophic organisms can harvest light energy for the production of biomass, energy stored in living organisms. Microbial biomass and existing waste materials such as domestic refuse, surplus grain, and animal wastes, can be converted to biofuels such as methane and ethanol... by the activities of microorganisms.
These organisms can also be used to help clean up pollution created by human activities, aprocess called bioremediation. Various microorganisms can be used to consume spilled oil, solvents, pesticides, and other environmentally toxic pollutants.
(To read more about this topic go to http://cwx.prenhall.com/brock/ (Brock: Biology of Microorganisms)
OBESITY AND BACTERIA
There are three main contributors to obesity:
1. Human genetics play a large part in determining body weight.
2. Reduction in physical activities and the availability of inexpensive, calorically dense food.
3. The balance/imbalance of the gut bacteria.
The first two have been discussed over and over again, but the balance of the gut flora is a more or less new aspect.
For the vast majority of humans – including obese individuals – caloric intake exceeds caloric expenditure by less than 1%. The body’s ability to balance intake and expenditure is the result of the brain’s ability to monitor the amount of fat in the body through changes in the level of circulating hormones.
Two groups of beneficial bacteria are dominant in the human gut: the Bacteroidetes and the Firmicutes. In a research with obese patients, Ley et al (published in “Proceedings of the National Academy of Science”) found out, that the proportion of Bacteroidetes is decreased in obese people and that the obese gut has uncharacterised properties that tip the balance toward the Firmicutes.
This finding show, that obesity has a microbial component. This result has potential therapeutic implications and will change our views of what causes obesity and how we depend on the bacteria that inhabit our gut.
The treatment of obesity might depend on tests to analyse the patient’s gut flora.
The microbiota of obese people extracts more calories from food. Result: The efficiency of caloric extraction from food may be determined by the composition of the microbiota, which may contribute to differential body weight.
More research will be necessary to address the ecological and evolutionary perspective on human-microbe mutualism and disease.
One conclusion can be already drawn from the latest finding: Probiotics might be very important once a bacterial imbalance is properly diagnosed, but… they probably have no place in prevention of bacterial imbalances. |
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