PRAIRIE DOC®
  • Home
  • About
  • People
  • Television
  • Podcasts
  • Perspective
  • Donate
  • Contact
  • Foundation
  • Book

It’s Not Nice to Mess with Normal Flora

6/17/2017

 
It’s Not Nice to Mess with Normal Flora

By Richard P. Holm, MD

 An elderly hospitalized pneumonia patient was getting better after three days on powerful antibiotics when bloody diarrhea, cramping, and fever began and his overall condition started to deteriorate. His stool test was positive for C. difficile and he got better on a different type of antibiotic. This happened because the abundance of microscopic organisms which normally lived, grew, and replicated within his body were weakened or destroyed by the pneumonia antibiotics, resulting in the loss of an important balance of nature within our bodies.

 It sounds like a sci-fi movie, but this is NOT fiction. Scientists have discovered large numbers of micro-communities around and within every living plant and animal. Surprisingly many of these ‘invaders’ are necessary and helpful to the host, although some have no known benefit and some are harmful. These microscopic organisms include bacteria, fungi, viruses, and parasites and are called the ‘normal flora’ or ‘microbiota’ (like oat-uh).

 Helpful non-human examples of microbiota include bacteria that fix nitrogen on alfalfa, fertilizing plant and surrounding soil; or organisms living in the rumen of cattle that make grass turn into absorbable nutritious food. There are about 10X as many non-human microbial cells in our body as human cells, and they exist almost everywhere, including mammary glands, skin cells, lungs, mouth, and eyes. The area where most microbiota reside, however, is within the gut or gastro-intestinal (GI) tract.

 From the first minute after birth, the baby’s gut is exposed to a microorganism-rich world following their travel through the vaginal canal, followed by exposure to skin and milk flora while suckling at mama’s breasts. Over the next year, the baby’s microbiota develops and helps the infant break down dietary fiber and fat while simultaneously serving as a barrier to invasive organisms. It also helps synthesize vitamins, metabolize harmful toxins, reduce inflammation, enhance immune activity, and produce hormones.

 When human flora encounters radical changes, often resulting from non-specific destruction by antibiotics, inflammatory and autoimmune disorders may occur; antibiotics can cause overgrowth of invasive bacteria, the most common of which is called Clostridium difficile, or C. dif. This type of invasive overgrowth was responsible for about a half million infections in 2011, with 29,000 of those dying within the first month.
​

Take home message: avoid antibiotics unless necessary. It’s not nice to mess with normal flora.


Comments are closed.

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

PRAIRIE DOC® MEDIA IS A PART OF HEALING WORDS FOUNDATION.

FIND SCIENCE-BASED PEDIATRIC MEDICAL INFORMATION ON OUR SISTER SITE. 
Healing Words Foundation logo
Play Eat Sleep logo
  • Home
  • About
  • People
  • Television
  • Podcasts
  • Perspective
  • Donate
  • Contact
  • Foundation
  • Book