The Goods Are Odd

Keeping track of the raw milk controversy has peaked my interest more in the sort of puritan relationship we have with the bacteria in the world and in our bodies (if we can call them that, with 90% of our cells being of other microorganisms). Advances in antibiotics have saved lives and expanded life expectancy, but they seem to have also made us so sensitive to our environment and the battles that play out in our gut and our immune system.

This is particularly clear when we travel. We are not well-suited to deal with the microorganisms we come in contact with when we travel to places that may not serve the kind of sanitized food we are used to. The list of thing experts advise to avoid leaves travelers with little option to try the local eats, particularly homemade.

Advice on what not to eat abroad (most things apparently) as well as an antibiotic response to stomach upset while traveling is discussed in this NYT article.

Then it mentions this: “Part of the blame, ironically, rests on our sanitary eating habits at home, which leaves American stomachs ill-equipped to withstand the types of bacteria that those in the developing world grow immune to.”

I was ready for the author to chide the developed world for leaving their guts so fragile misunderstood, creating many problems for digestion at home and without natural defense abroad. But sadly, this follows and we don’t return to the sad state of our badly supported flora and fuana:

“Some experts say that travelers can level the playing field by taking an antibiotic called Xifaxan.”

What?

And then they throw out this as if totally harmless: ““It’s not like we had anything that worked before,” Dr. DuPont said. If diarrhea-causing bugs eventually prove resistant to Xifaxan, he adds, doctors can just ‘throw it out.’”

Oh. It’s fine we’ll just get rid of good bacteria in your belly and when we’ve weeded out the weak ones of the bad guys, leaving the most powerful to breed, we’ll just come up with some other horribly un-pronounceable micro-life nuker.

The reliance on antibiotics ignores that we rely completely on our flora and fauna to live, see this story from my esteemed colleague.

This Washington Post article addresses the possibility of benefits to stocking up on the good little guys rather than trying to start tabla rasa in a new place. It’s very cautious and doesn’t discuss the broader public health benefits of resisting the anti option.

I would be very interested to know whether or not people living in parts of the world where Americans get sick have upset stomachs themselves when they travel to places with different food processing standards (including other developing areas). Do they not get sick when they come here, and if not is it because we have cleaner food or because they have more going on in their guts?