Beneficial and Harmful Microbes

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Dec 06, 2022 11:38 am

It is just a fact of life that are beneficial and harmful microbes or more directly good and bad bugs. Throughout human history we have face the dangers of bad bugs with the bulk of the people dying from some infectious disease before they reached maturity.

But some eighty years ago we began to develop the technology of killing off the bad bugs, with antibiotics and toxic chemicals and our food system became relatively inert – free from any bugs (good or bad). This seemed to work and we dramatically reduced the death rate from infectious diseases and the population exploded – trebling in less that my life span.

But we learned the hard way that when we killed off the good bugs that we fell prey to chronic or non infectious diseases.

Learning how to breed the good bugs while controlling the bad bags is the great technical challenge we face.

The solution can be termed ecological balance.

René · Post by **René** » Tue Dec 06, 2022 11:38 am

The appropriate perspective.

With DNA testing and comparisons able to be done cheaply and quickly, the ability to understand soil and gut microbiomes has exploded. We can live in a balanced good/bad bug environment and take advantage of the immense data and technology available to live our best lives. We do need to dramatically reduce mass antimicrobial applications in food production, personal hygiene and some medical situations though. Better broad education about this in society through our education system will be important.

Batman · Post by **Batman** » Tue Dec 27, 2022 11:54 am