RESEARCH
ME AND MY MICROBES
Scientists are finding that microbes have a complex role to play in human health, affecting everything from our ability to recover from surgery to the food we like to eat.
P
rofessor Anthony Hilton is explaining a theory called competitive exclusion. “The analogy that’s been used is a car park,” he says. “If you’re a bad bacterium and you enter an empty car park, you can park wherever you want; if everything is full of cars you just drive around and can’t get in anywhere. In other words, if your gut is rammed full of good bacteria, there’s no real space for the bad bacteria to get a foothold.”
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