Modern Medicine May Not Be Doing Your Microbiome Any Favors

Staff Writer | NPR Books | April 14, 2014

There are lots of theories about why food allergies, asthma, celiac disease and intestinal disorders like Crohn's disease have been on the rise. Dr. Martin Blaser speculates that it may be connected to the overuse of antibiotics, which has resulted in killing off strains of bacteria that typically live in the gut.

Blaser is an expert on the human microbiome, which is the collection of bacteria, viruses, fungi and other microbes that live in and on the body. In fact, up to 90 percent of all the cells in the human body aren't human at all — they're micro-organisms.

Blaser is the director of NYU's Human Microbiome Program and a former chairman of medicine there. His new book is called Missing Microbes: How the Overuse of Antibiotics Is Fueling Our Modern Plagues.

He tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross that with the overuse of antibiotics, as well as some other now-common practices like cesarean sections, we've entered a danger zone — a no man's land between the world of our ancient microbiome and an uncharted modern world.