Did you know that there are 100 trillion of good bacteria that live in or on the human body? Researchers have now taken a detailed look at this set of bacteria that may play even bigger roles in health and disease.
An adult human has two to nine pounds of bacteria in his or her body.
They are essential for human life, needed to digest food, to synthesize certain vitamins, to form a barricade against disease-causing bacteria.
Bonnie Bassler, a Princeton University microbiologist, said that until recently the bacteria were thought to be just “passive riders.” They were barely studied, because it was hard to know much about them.
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