How the environment and the microbiome jointly shape the body.
Excerpt:
All multicellular living beings are colonized by an unimaginably large number of microorganisms and have developed together with them from the very beginning of multicellular life. The natural microbiome, i.e. the totality of these bacteria, viruses and fungi that live in and on a body, is of fundamental importance for the entire organism: it supports, for example, the absorption of nutrients or fends off pathogens. The individual development of a living being, on the other hand, was long regarded as a purely genetically determined process that is independent of external factors.
For some time now, however, it has become clear that developmental processes do not take place autonomously either. Most living beings have developed strategies to recognize changes in their environment and to adapt their individual growth and thus also the resulting body shape to the prevailing conditions. But how this so-called phenotypic plasticity is controlled and how environmental factors including microbial influences are recognized and integrated into genetic development programs has only recently become the subject of research.
Informative article with links re PD and Gut microbiome
The environment makes the cells says Bruce Lipton. The importance of isolating the supposedly sick person...
