Everyone’s body is brimming with bacteria, and these microbes do plenty of good things such as building the immune system and helping digestion. But modern diets, antibiotics and hygiene seem to be reducing the range of microbes occupying our anatomy.
A study published on Friday looking at the gut, mouth and skin microbes in people from a small, isolated tribe in southern Venezuela’s Amazonian jungles shows just how much modern life may be altering humankind’s bodily bacteria.
The Yanomami villagers, secluded from the outside world until 2009, possessed the most diverse collection of bacteria ever found in people including some never before detected in humans, said scientists whose research appears in the journal Science Advances .
The researchers were surprised to learn that the Yanomami’s microbes harboured antibiotic-resistant genes, including those conferring resistance to manmade antibiotics, considering they never had exposure to commercial antibiotics.
Every person hosts trillions of microbes, collectively called the microbiota, that live in and on virtually every part of the body.
“Our study suggests that the pre-modern human microbiota was composed of a greater diversity of bacteria and a greater diversity of bacterial functions when compared to populations impacted by modern practices, such as processed foods and antibiotics,” said Professor Gautam Dantas of Washington University in St. Louis.
The researchers analysed microbial samples from 34 of the 54 Yanomami villagers.