Germs or crap--you decide
A recent New Yorker article, stepping far out on the leading edge of science, recently informed me that humans, as a species, far from being nicely made in the image of God, or even evolved from sturdy Cro-Magnon ancestors, are mere bloated bags of bacteria. Each of our bodies loyally supports about a hundred trillion microbes, comprising thousands of varieties, like an extremely large and needy family. The weight of the bacteria in an average human body is about three pounds.
"Well," you say, "Why can't modern science kill these things off? Sounds like an easy way to lose three pounds to me." We can't do that. These germs are not just one-celled freeloaders enjoying our mammalian ability to keep a constant body temperature. We need these boys. They help us digest our food, maintain our muscles and even affect brain chemistry.
Yes, I said brain chemistry. Even those of you who have maintained all along that the Tea Party is a contagious, mindless plague may be startled to discover you were exactly right.
Like anything else nature has designed and left in perfect balance, we human beings have managed to screw up our own personal germ collections, or microbiomes. We do this by taking antibiotics. The New Yorker steps rather delicately around this issue, acknowledging that antibiotics have saved many lives. Besides that, however, they are helping us breed super bacteria that will kill us all eventually, and in the meantime they are wreaking havoc on the nice pioneer germs we need to survive. Antibiotics may screw up our microorganismatic buddies enough that we eventually suffer from obesity, diabetes, ulcers and many other uncomfortable diseases, mostly centered in the gut.
That is the theory behind all that yogurty, probiotic stuff they advertise and you don't pay any attention to. "Eat this," the probiotic people say. "It's full of germs. It'll make you feel better."
If gobbling store-bought germs doesn't help and you are still deathly ill from a lack of bacteria in your system, don't just go out and start licking the handles of supermarket carts. No, there is something even more disgusting that medical science can do for you. That is the notorious fecal transplant. This is not quite what it sounds like. No surgery is involved. You, the sick person, merely need to consume the feces of a healthy Individual. What, you say? Like my dog does when I take him to the dog park? I hope I at least get to lick face afterwards like he does.
No. Medicine has ways of getting the good feces inside of you while bypassing your taste buds. You just have to get over the fact that your dog is more scientifically advanced than you.
Also, when the health benefits of fecal transplants become better known, inviting a person whom one finds disagreeable, like a poor driver or a fan of a rival sports team, to consume feces may become passé. You might as well scream "Salud!" at the individual who has offended you.
I predict an entire industry will spring up around the discovery of the beneficial effects of crap consumption, as the American way of doing things is always to overdo them. Capsules containing poop will be promoted as a necessary part of our daily diet and in the spirit of capitalist competitiveness, their manufacturers will talk sh*t about each other's sh*t. Cheap poop pills will be sold at Walmart, whereas boutique vitamin shops will advertise "100 % Organic Genuine Bantu Bush Sh*t from Mother Africa."
And if someone near and dear to you is critically ill, you can say to them, without risk of criticism, "No, you can't have one of my kidneys. But I'll certainly let you have some of my…"
"Well," you say, "Why can't modern science kill these things off? Sounds like an easy way to lose three pounds to me." We can't do that. These germs are not just one-celled freeloaders enjoying our mammalian ability to keep a constant body temperature. We need these boys. They help us digest our food, maintain our muscles and even affect brain chemistry.
Yes, I said brain chemistry. Even those of you who have maintained all along that the Tea Party is a contagious, mindless plague may be startled to discover you were exactly right.
Like anything else nature has designed and left in perfect balance, we human beings have managed to screw up our own personal germ collections, or microbiomes. We do this by taking antibiotics. The New Yorker steps rather delicately around this issue, acknowledging that antibiotics have saved many lives. Besides that, however, they are helping us breed super bacteria that will kill us all eventually, and in the meantime they are wreaking havoc on the nice pioneer germs we need to survive. Antibiotics may screw up our microorganismatic buddies enough that we eventually suffer from obesity, diabetes, ulcers and many other uncomfortable diseases, mostly centered in the gut.
That is the theory behind all that yogurty, probiotic stuff they advertise and you don't pay any attention to. "Eat this," the probiotic people say. "It's full of germs. It'll make you feel better."
If gobbling store-bought germs doesn't help and you are still deathly ill from a lack of bacteria in your system, don't just go out and start licking the handles of supermarket carts. No, there is something even more disgusting that medical science can do for you. That is the notorious fecal transplant. This is not quite what it sounds like. No surgery is involved. You, the sick person, merely need to consume the feces of a healthy Individual. What, you say? Like my dog does when I take him to the dog park? I hope I at least get to lick face afterwards like he does.
No. Medicine has ways of getting the good feces inside of you while bypassing your taste buds. You just have to get over the fact that your dog is more scientifically advanced than you.
Also, when the health benefits of fecal transplants become better known, inviting a person whom one finds disagreeable, like a poor driver or a fan of a rival sports team, to consume feces may become passé. You might as well scream "Salud!" at the individual who has offended you.
I predict an entire industry will spring up around the discovery of the beneficial effects of crap consumption, as the American way of doing things is always to overdo them. Capsules containing poop will be promoted as a necessary part of our daily diet and in the spirit of capitalist competitiveness, their manufacturers will talk sh*t about each other's sh*t. Cheap poop pills will be sold at Walmart, whereas boutique vitamin shops will advertise "100 % Organic Genuine Bantu Bush Sh*t from Mother Africa."
And if someone near and dear to you is critically ill, you can say to them, without risk of criticism, "No, you can't have one of my kidneys. But I'll certainly let you have some of my…"
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