Rewild Your Health: The Healing Potential of Biodiversity

Our bodies consist of about 30 trillion human cells, but they also host about 39 trillion microbial cells – communities of bacteria, viruses, protozoa and fungi in our gut, mouths, skin, and throughout every organ system of our body. These microbial cells are collectively known as the microbiome and they form ecosystems that are essential to our health.

Each person’s Microbiomes are uniquely different, much like your fingerprint. They are also incredibly dynamic – growing, shrinking and evolving through a persons lifetime. Disruptions to these delicate ecosystems can affect our health. A fascinating new study, the largest, most comprehensive research to date on the microbiome, has found that microbial organisms can migrate between people through skin, saliva, and even through spending time together breathing the same air.

This indicates there may be no such thing as non-communicable diseases, as we are constantly sharing our microbiome with others. Between 2 million and 20 million unique microbial genes may be present in our microbiome that are constantly mutating and evolving. Gut microbes that affect glucose and insulin levels in the body have been tied to obesity and conditions like metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes. This may explain a study done 20 years ago on obesity that tracked 12,000 people over 32 years and showed that obesity can spread like a virus from person to person. The study concluded that people who knew someone who was obese had a 57 percent increased risk of also become obese.

As we age, a large portion of our microbiome continues to come from the people we live with or near. The findings are the strongest evidence to date that we share parts of our microbiome with the people we spend the most time with. Genomicists also observed that there was a pattern of microbe transition across the globe.

We often see things as being so separate, and yet we are all connected – quite literally.

This bring us to the topic of the global microbiome. According to MD Zach Bush, we are a reflection of the diversity in nature, and we can turn to the natural world to help us diversify our microbiome in order to improve our health. He believes the ecosystem has healing potential, we can eat real foods, touch nature – the soil and the ocean, breath real ecosystems and be in symbiosis with the Earth to improve our immune system and adaptability. He recommends eating a broad diet, and eating low on the food chain. Eat the rainbow for maximum biodiversity and an array of phytonutrients. Eat seasonally and eat fresh. Breath in as many ecosystems as possible. Visiting a variety of ecosystems will help you create more biodiversity in your body’s microbiome.

Now, if you’re a little freaked out by all this talk about microbes, then click away now because it’s about to get even freakier!

Until recently it was believed that the centre of human cells comprised of a nucleus – and you probably learnt this at school. In the last decade further studies have revealed that it’s not just the nucleus at the centre of each cell….

You guested it, there are microbes!! They even have their own genomes!

Known collectively as the mitochondria these super diverse “organelles” as they’re called, emerged from bacteria so they are not exactly classified as microbes, but close enough. Which begs the question “who even are we?” Is it me who wants to stay up late at night, or are my microbes planning a party?

But don’t get too freaked out. Thankfully these “organelles” are helpers to the human body and act as the powerhouse of our cells. And remember, you are not your microbes. The real you is your soul, which is infinite and expansive, we are just cohabitating with these friendly little guys to help us integrate while we are here on Earth.

We have a vast internal ecosystem supporting every cell, and what we’re learning is that the cell is not the center of human health, the microbiome is. We can influence our microbiome and our genes through our diet and lifestyle.

So how do we do that? How do we ensure that we have the right kind of microbes that help keep us healthy? The answer is biodiversity.

Eat the rainbow, and eat organic foods. Avoid GMO’s and pesticides like glyphosate which kill off some of our friendly microbes. Create symbiosis with nature.

My weekly walks by the ocean have diversified into excursions to see various hiking trails, and even a Redwood grove where I explored for an hour, breathing in the natural aromatics and touching the bark and leaves of the trees. I’m also exploring foods and supplements found in diverse ecosystems including all kinds of mushrooms and sea minerals – but only those that are third party tested for heavy metals and other toxins. In nature, fungi, like mushrooms, are linked to the prevention and clean up of toxic events, and we have around 3.5 million species of fungi in our microbiome.

I’m currently obsessed with bee products. Bees visit hundreds of plants collecting all their health-giving phytonutrients to bring back to the hive, so I’m loving wild flower honey, bee pollen and propolis. I’m also growing and eating more sprouts and herbs which harbor friendly biotics and are packed with nutrients.

You’ll notice that I didn’t mention fermented foods, since these microbes thrive on breaking down plant matter. I’m more interested in biotics on live matter like sprouts, herbs, and berries from pesticide-free soil. Farmers Markets could be a good place to find fresh fruit and vegetables with healthy biotics. Around the house, I’m also cutting down on anti-microbials in favor of plant based enzyme cleaners. I even bought some sea moss gel from Erewhon.

I believe the future of health and healing lies in embracing biodiversity and minimizing toxins from our lives.