It’s hard to imagine when you look in the mirror – we’re more bacteria than anything else.
More than 100 trillion bacteria in our gut alone – our own, personal microbiota – totally unique to each of us, as individually different as a fingerprint or retina scan. Viruses too, even more than bacteria – all co-existing inside us and sharing the living miracle that we are.
Plus we’re surrounded by our own signature cloud of bacteria, body detritus and other microbes that surrounds us like a halo every second of every day.
Outnumbered by bacteria 10:1?
Not really, those teeming microbes are possibly our most vital element – the OS that drives our brain, heart, lungs and all other body parts – together with supporting body apps that enable us to be the walking, talking, thinking, achieving human beings we have evolved to be.
Without these bacteria, we are nothing. They’re our heavy lifters – that do the digesting, creating of proteins, regulating our immune systems and thousands of other functions. It is their diversity and sheer numbers that keep us healthy, fit and strong. Our own personal bacteria, in the right place.
Which means they need protection – which is what this blog is about. Hands off our bacteria, the life force that keeps us alive.
They need protection from other bacteria – viruses and fungi too – the billions and billions of microbes that could make us ill, or kill us. Protection from the wrong bacteria, the wrong viruses, in the wrong place, inside our bodies.
Which includes new diseases like AIDS, Ebola and Zika. And other previously-controllable viruses and bacteria now resistant to antibiotics – once the wonder drugs to save us from everything.
Today antibiotics are in terrifying descent – from triumph to disaster. Increasingly recognised as double-edged swords that destroy as they cure – they deplete our personal bacteria population and shrink its diversity. In turn this reduces our resistance, making us weaker and more vulnerable – through over-use and misuse, by almost a third less than we were 50 years ago. Fatter too, deeper into the clutches of a long-term obesity epidemic.
All of which means the day is fast approaching when antibiotics – our major germ protectors – will be suddenly gone. So that survival depends on keeping germs away, or avoiding them altogether.
Sure, scrubbing hands is always good – though we need to be more thorough. Billions of germs surround us every day – and none of them are going away.
Time to take hygiene to a whole new level. Of being not just clean, but safe.
We even started a company to make it happen – Hyper Hygiene Ltd – two ordinary folk who reckon hospital-level sterile should be everyday sterile too. Health protection for everyone. Because if there’s no bugs around, nobody can get sick.
No, we’re not doctors – but taking down bugs before they get to you, is easy as pie. You just need to know how. Our method is to oxidise them to nothing so there’s none left – no bad guy viruses or bacteria, safe and sterile.
All of which is why we started this blog. To help everybody make their lives safer, healthier.
We may not always be perfect with it, but we’ll always be committed. And always on your side. Join us, won’t you? Help us do this thing.
Those germs are never going to stop – so we’re all in this together.