05/29/2019
For the past 15+ years hardly a day goes by when I don’t think about how our species evolved a dependance on microbes. Simply put: humans are obligate mutualist in that we cannot survive without our microbial partners. Fact. Over last 6 years working and living with the Hadza hunter-gatherers of Tanzania I’ve been in awe of the extraordinary symbiosis not just between the Hadza and the flora and fauna of east Africa, but of the stunning dependance the Hadza — and presumably our ancestors — have on the pool of microbes in/on the water, soil, plants and animals on the landscape. You see, our species along with every other thing on the planet that walks, crawls, swims or flies through the air has evolved a similar symbiosis — at varying degrees — with “everything” else to maintain a healthy diversity of microbes that perform important ecological services for the host. A simple example among humans is the role microbes play in degrading dietary fibers on our behalf — note humans do not possess the enzymes to degrade and thus utilize dietary fiber— thus creating byproducts we can use (eg, short chain fatty acids). The intimate relationship/symbiosis our ancestors evolved with the environment and its extraordinary diversity of — well, everything — explains the amazing diversity of microbes that the Hadza harbor in and on their bodies. And as mounting research is beginning to reveal, so-called modern diseases may be the result in a drop in our microbial diversity in and on us. Westernized populations have simply, through advances in technology and shift in cultural norms, sped away from the things that made us human in the first place — that is, we’ve become so unattuned to the importance of nature and planetary health in general in the name of comfort and advancement, that we’ve become blind to its importance — even to the point where some portions of global societies mock the importance of planetary health and cheer on exploitation and outright destruction of ecosystems that got us where we are today. So here we are. This is a teaching moment for humanity. It’s simple: for humans to recapture our health we must tend to nature. Nothing matters more. Nothing. We are all guilty - as am I. But we can all make a difference. Peace out.✌️
