Social marketing - Health Promotion

It may surprise some of you to learn that your body is home to microscopic organisms (microorganisms or microbes) that outnumber your 100 trillion human cells by 10 to 1. Microbiology is focused on the study of these microorganisms which are found in every life form on earth and are vital to humans and to the environment. These microorganisms, together with their genomes and interactions, are known by the term ‘microbiome’.

Microbiologists have been studying and researching microbiomes for many years and it is an emerging field gaining more importance in understanding human health and disease. By far, the largest part of the genetic information inside our body is contained in the microbes of our microbiome rather than in the human genome itself. There are many researchers today who believe that the microbiome exerts at least as much influence, and possibly more, on our health than the genes we inherit from our parents.

Research has implicated the microbiome as a contributor to many disease conditions. It has also been found that transplanting microbe communities from healthy people to sick people can be beneficial in treating disease. The Japanese Foundation for Cancer Research, in Tokyo has now found through their research experiments that the microbiome has been implicated in liver cancer.

This is an exciting filed of research and opens up possibilities for health and understanding disease that may have not yet been imagined.