Where The Holistic Rubber Meets The Scientific Road

Viruses in Shit and Sewage

The 4-letter “S” word (shit), there I said it…

More correctly, it’s known as feces (to Americans) or faeces to those who still know and understand our Greek heritage!

In fact collective sh*t (oops, said it again), or raw sewage, is home to the most diverse collection of viruses ever documented. Literally thousands have been discovered, some of which could be a threat to human health, according to a new study published in mBio, the journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

All told, we have learned to recognize around 3,000 distinct viruses worldwide. According to this study, published online Oct 4th, 2011, researchers found the genetic signature of 234 of these known viruses present in raw sewage in North America, Europe and Africa. That’s a hefty percentage of the recognized total.

This total includes known human pathogens, such as human papillomavirus, which can cause genital warts and cervical cancer, and norovirus, which causes stomach flu.

There were also viruses associated with rodents and cockroaches, viruses from plants and viruses that prey on bacteria. Not all bad, that’s for sure.

But fascinatingly, most of the genetic signatures belonged to as-yet undiscovered viruses, many of which play unknown roles in human health and environmental processes.

This focuses yet again on the emergence in recent years of the vast scale of the human microbiome: the collection of genes from microbes present in and on our bodies, which outnumber our own genes by 150:1.

You’ll learn more about the human microbiome when my new book “Fire In The Belly” is finally brought forth!

1 COMMENT

  1. Keith,
    I am taking this opportunity to tell you how much I enjoy what you have to share. I would like to share an article recently published that provides a new perspective on autoimmune disease by way of the discoveries being made about the human metagenome. The title “Immunostimulation in the era of the Metagenome”.
    Cellular & Molecular Immunology advance online publication, 31 January 2011; doi:10.1038/cmi.2010.77. If you respond I can send a pdf.
    There is also a chapter I can share from a recently published text from the Ventor institute edited by the Dr. Karen E. Nelson the Director of the Rockville Campus of the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) where she has been for the past 14 years. She was formerly the Director of Human Microbiology and Metagenomics in the Department of Human Genomic Medicine at the JCVI.
    Tom Perez,
    CAPT USPHS, Retired

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