10% Human: How Your Body's Microbes Hold the Key to Health and Happiness

Author: Collen, AlannaBrand: Harper PaperbacksEdition: ReprintBinding: PaperbackFormat: IllustratedNumber Of Pages: 352Release Date: 10-05-2016Part Number: 648150Details: Now in paperback, evolutionary biologist and science writer Alanna Collen’s stunning alarm call concerning the widely-ignored role our gut microbes play in our health and well-being. “Fascinating…. Everything you wanted to know about microbes but were afraid to ask.”— Kirkus Reviews (starred review) You are just 10% human. For every one of the cells that make up the vessel that you call your body, there are nine impostor cells hitching a ride. You are not just flesh and blood, muscle and bone, brain and skin, but also bacteria and fungi. Over your lifetime, you will carry the equivalent weight of five African elephants in microbes. You are not an individual but a colony. Until recently, we had thought our microbes hardly mattered, but science is revealing a different story, one in which microbes run our bodies and bec