Grok My Enthusiasm (27)

By: Mandy Keifetz
July 13, 2016

One in a weekly series of enthusiastic posts contributed by HILOBROW friends and regulars.

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beneficial-bacteria-methane

We co-evolved with microbes. There are 100 trillion of them in your intestines right now. That’s your intestines. Just at the moment, mine have roughly 500 billion more that I swallowed this morning.

For every cell in your body, there are about nine cells of microbes (bacteria, fungi, and archaea) who are not you. In the course of your actuarily average lifetime, you will be the Airbnb for around twenty tons of microbes. That’s three T-Rexes more or less. Twenty fucktons of not-human crittermeat inside you.

Hadn’t you better get to know them?

The microbiota in your gut ferments the plant fibers you consume and produces metabolites: short chain fatty acids called butyrate, acetate, and propionate.

But I’m losing you.

Let’s get Biblical and think of those metabolites as Pious Young People such as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

The thing to know is mostly this: These Pious Young People have been kicking around our bodies for so long that they are a critical part of the function of that body. They regulate your immune system.

How does that work? In very brief:

The metabolites produced by your microbiota can modulate your immune signaling proteins, the interleukins and the tumor necrosis factors. Of course, short chain fatty acids are fuel, and thus get burned up in the process. (Like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.)

The body wants to protect itself and becomes inflamed wherever the immune system perceives a threat. This is all very well when the threat is real, but it becomes problematic when the mechanism to turn off the inflammation is damaged, or when the threat is imagined.

Think of this as McCarthyism. Or else think of it as autoimmune disease.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are the turn-off switch. Without the metabolites produced by your microbes, this inflammation becomes systemic — and symptoms (depression, anxiety, obesity, psoriasis, chronic fatigue, diabetes, MS to name a few) abound.

(Without the Pious Young People, the institution becomes authoritarian — and symptoms abound.)

You can, and you should, nurture the Pious Young People by eating fermentable plant fibers. You can, and you should, keep your inner state dynamic by consuming the microbes themselves.

(It should be noted here that I am not a doctor or even a science writer. I’m a novelist. I make shit up for a living. And you can no more — or less — trust a novelist than a cop. I speak as a fanboy.)

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GROK MY ENTHUSIASM: Rob Wringham on THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF LUNCH | Gordon Dahlquist on WEEKEND | Joe Alterio on MILLION YEAR PICNIC | Adrienne Crew on LA BARONNE EMILE D’ERLANGER | Josh Glenn on THE SURVIVAL SAMPLER | Alix Lambert on THE SKIES BELONG TO US | Adam McGovern on PENELOPE and CHAVEZ RAVINE | Rob Wringham on THE LYKE WAKE WALK | Mark Kingwell on NORTH STAR SNEAKERS & GWG JEANS | Gordon Dahlquist on FELLINI SATYRICON | Erik Davis on AH! | Devin McKinney on WHISPERING AFRAID | Mimi Lipson on 1973 SEARS ROEBUCK CATALOG | Jessamyn West on MOSS | Josh Glenn on THE SCOUT HOW BOOK | Brian Berger on SLACKER | Alix Lambert on ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS | Chelsey Johnson on MONOTREMES | Devin McKinney on THE BUTCHER COVER | Flourish Klink on ONE DIRECTION | Gordon Dahlquist on FULL METAL JACKET | Allegra Huston on CLOTHESLINE | Jenny Davidson on POWERLIFTING | Evan Narcisse on REZ | Deborah Wassertzug on VEGETARIAN MEATBALLS | Chris Spurgeon on WALLACE AND GROMIT | Mandy Keifetz on BENEFICIAL MICROBES | Annie Nocenti on MARKS ON WALLS | Molly Sauter on THE GREAT BRITISH BAKE OFF | William Nericcio on LAND OF THE LOST | Dan Fox on “VOICE OF GOD” RADIO DJS | Brandi Brown on WIKIPEDIA TALK | Claire Lehmann on THE APPARATUS REVEAL | Alice Boone on COSTUME JEWELRY | Colin Dickey on WIDESPREAD PANIC | Anshuman Iddamsetty on THE FULL BODY PROJECT | John Hilgart on MAKING GRATEFUL DEAD ALBUMS | Rob Wringham on STEVEN UNIVERSE | John Overholt on DECKLE EDGES | James Hannaham on HABIT PATTERNS | Jessamyn West on THE PUBLIC LIBRARY SYSTEM | Adam McGovern on THE SPACE GIANTS | Brian Berger on MEDIUM COOL | Chris Spurgeon on THE DUNNING-KRUGER EFFECT | Joe Alterio on TABLETOP WARGAMING | Mimi Lipson on TRASH PICKING | Jason Grote on CZECH CINEMA | Roxane Gay on AUTOMATED CAR WASH | Dan Fox on JULIA DAVIS | Amy Thielen on BINGO | Steph Burt on FEIJOA.

MORE ENTHUSIASM at HILOBROW

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Enthusiasms