Living in a microbial world & I am a microbial girl...
Hello! I am Lianne Campbell MSc, a citizen scientist fascinated by emerging research into the human microbiome.
At the tender age of 16, I was diagnosed with an 'autoimmune' condition and regularly suffered with various health problems such as sickness, allergic reactions, fatigue and joint pain. Since then I have read everything and anything relating to autoimmune conditions, including my entire medical records which showed that my health started to deteriorate after three rounds of the broad spectrum antibiotic Amoxicillin for tonsillitis. Interesting.
After years of living in a perpetual loop of short-term remission due to conventional medication, I decided to take matters into my own hands and started to clear my psoriasis through my diet and lifestyle intervention. After only a few months of significant diet changes, almost all of my symptoms were gone.
I have decided to share my experience and passion about the power of nutrient dense prebiotic food in my blog, Biome Blogger, a blog about the human microbiome.
The microbiome
For those of you who don't know, the microbiome is a collection of single celled organisms (imagine trillions of teeny, tiny chemists) living in and on our bodies. From the microbes in our stomachs to the ones on our teeth, we are home to millions of these unique and diverse communities which help our bodies function!
This is a great little animation by Jessica Green and Karen Guillemin which emphasises the importance of understanding the many organisms that make up each and every individual and should help to explain the role and the impact of the microbiome.
The gut in particular is a hot-bed of microbial action! Hippocrates called it when he said 'all disease begins in the gut' and 'let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food' as we now know that the gut has a big impact on our health because of the 100 trillion bacteria living there.
These tiny organisms play a big part in our health and our lives but have not been taken into consideration in our current medical or food systems. As Isabelle de Cremoux pointed out- 'we eat about 2 kg of food everyday. Why would 2 kg of food have less impact than a 2 mg pill?' For this reason, many believe the microbiome will be as big as Biotech in 10 years.
Read more in my ebook:
