Health, ecology and the microbiome.
review · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 30994455.
- Also identified by DOI 10.7554/eLife.47626 and PMC identifier 6469925.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Advances in microbiomics have changed the way in which many researchers think about health and disease. These changes have also raised a number of philosophical questions around these topics, such as the types of living systems to which these concepts can be applied. Here, I discuss the human microbiome from two perspectives: the first treats the microbiome as part of a larger system that includes the human; the second treats the microbiome as an independent ecosystem that provides services to humans. Drawing on the philosophy of medicine and ecology, I explore two questions: i) how can we make sense of disease and dysfunction in these two perspectives? ii) are these two perspectives complimentary or do they compete with each other?
Medical subject headings
- Ecosystem
- Health
- Host Microbial Interactions
- Microbiota