Humanity is beginning to wake up to the frightening reality that the war against toxic microbes that conquered widespread pestilences has gone too far. In the effort to protect human health, we are now sterilizing ourselves into chronic illness. Children are the most vulnerable, but with this awareness, people can take steps to reclaim their health and the all-important microbial world that invisibly protects it.
What Lurks Behind Technology
Science is almost always a double-edged sword. With each innovation comes unanticipated negative impacts. The discovery of antibiotics saved millions of lives. The advent of agricultural chemicals that kill weeds, insects, and plant-killing fungi permitted efficient production and more affordable food supplies. Sanitation in plumbing and hand-washing helped spare many people from illness. Yet all of these “advances” have been accompanied by hidden dangers that are becoming increasingly evident.
Before modern medicine, blood-letting (including using leeches), trepanation (drilling holes through the skull to release evil spirits), mercury treatments (often fatal), crocodile dung for skin diseases, and tobacco smoke enemas were advised and administered by the best “professionals” of the bygone day. And one need not go back too far to recall the push for routine lobotomies as therapeutic, or the mutilation of children’s bodies to relieve “gender dysphoria.”
In the twentieth century, however, the scientific pendulum swung too far toward viewing bacteria and other unseen organisms as ubiquitous enemies. In truth, the vast majority of bacteria are integral to human health, including digestion, immune system function, nutrient absorption, and even mental health.
Killing the Good With the Bad
The consequences of this overmedicalization and oversterilization of Americans are increasingly evident in Gen Z and younger. Studies show that chronic disease is escalating steadily among children. Diabetes and fatty liver disease are now common in young children. Cancer rates are rising. Autism is common, as are numerous behavioral problems. PubMed reports: “The US is currently seeing an unprecedented number of youth with pediatric-onset conditions. It is incumbent for the US health system to seek ways to treat these patients in pediatric settings and eventually matriculate them into adult care.”
Yet even this seemingly erudite journal may be missing the mark, looking to the failing allopathic system of Western medicine to cure illness rather than feeding vital microbes to prevent it. Wiping out health-bolstering microbes is matriculating into adult populations, and the “US health system” may be as much to blame as leech-doctors and snake oil (an ancient Chinese remedy) advocates of yore.
Antibiotics cure short-term illnesses but disrupt the microbiome. The soil microbiome is very similar to that of the gut, as is the skin microbiome that blocks dangerous pathogens – all that hand sanitizer likely does more harm than good. Studies consistently show that urban Americans have some of the most depleted gut microbiomes on the planet: The healthiest human gut microbiomes have been recorded among Amazonian rainforest tribes who never heard of “Tricks are for kids!”
The Gut-Brain Axis
That gut microbiome is often now called the “second brain” and is directly linked to the human brain through what is called the “gut-brain axis.” The neurologic network of this axis connects microbial life with human health, shaping memory, decision-making skills, mood, and sleep, and influencing the risk of developing neurological diseases, including Alzheimer's. The trillions of bacteria, fungi, viruses, and other microbes that flourish in the human digestive tract do more than just digest food – they talk to your brain, and influence behavior, thoughts, and feelings. Yet another important microbial world exists on human skin (the “skin microbiome”), which also helps protect against pathogens: Sterilizing the skin kills the good bacteria that protect us.
Humanity is realizing that plants do not thrive on being sprayed with the basic nutrients nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. They thrive on microbial soil life that naturally delivers these and other nutrients when soil is robustly healthy. The same is true of human health – vitamins sprayed on corn flakes do not feed the microbes that, in turn, protect our health. Ultra-processed foods fail as well. Living foods are both curative and preventive: Foods like kimchi, kefir, sauerkraut, kombucha, and raw milk feed the microbes that feed us. (Milk pasteurization breaks down healthy enzymes, as well as beneficial bacteria that could otherwise repopulate the digestive tract.)
Coming full circle, antibiotics kill both good and bad bacteria. Those corn flakes are likely also to contain the weed killer glyphosate. While pesticide advocates claim glyphosate is harmless, a large and growing body of evidence suggests the chemical acts like an antibiotic, killing the gut bacteria on which health depends.
The Food Pathway to Better Health
Glyphosate kills weeds by interrupting the shikimate pathway, a metabolic process used to produce essential aromatic amino acids without which plants simply die. Humans do not employ the shikimate pathway – but the microbes in our gut microbiome do! Modern food supplies are rife with glyphosate, especially common in wheat, non-organic oats, soy, and lentils. Glyphosate is used in farming not just as a planting-time weed killer but also as a pre-harvest desiccant: It is sprayed on crops just a few days before harvest to achieve uniform maturity and maximize crop yields. Then it goes into human food.
Humans obtain essential aromatic amino acids through what they eat. A significant portion of human gut bacteria rely on the shikimate pathway for their survival: When they die, they can no longer digest food or communicate with the brain. Inflammation, behavior, immune function, and other aspects of physical and mental health are compromised. An estimated 54% of human gut bacterial species are potentially sensitive to glyphosate, including beneficial species such as Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium.
But it gets worse. Some pathogenic bacteria have developed resistance to glyphosate and thus opportunistically flourish in its presence, even as benevolent bacteria are killed off. This disparity in sensitivity can disrupt the microbiome, creating an unhealthy imbalance known as dysbiosis, which, in turn, can lead to chronic gut inflammation. This impacts vitamin absorption, immune system function, and mental health, as it can impair the vital link between the brain and gut, affecting mood and behavior.
Gen Z is suffering the health consequences of unhealthy food supplies tainted with chemicals, and an oversterilization of good bacteria in the gut and on the skin. Both the prevention and cure of the increasing chronic disease epidemic in America depend on the health of the microbes we eat. Shoppers increasingly seek living foods, not nutritionless facsimiles devoid of life and tainted with chemicals.
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