Prompt: List as many human non-infectious diseases that you can think of that are influenced by microorganisms. In other words, which diseases that you already know about might be modulated by microbes?
This prompt is a bit difficult for me. I think I can come up with quite a few non-infectious diseases but I do not know if they are influenced by microorganisms. The lecture videos mentioned that cancers, mental health, and diabetes can be influenced by microbials. I would not be surprised if microorganism do impact these diseases. Our body is in constant contact with microorganisms inside of us. It would only make sense that these microorganism can affect our health and diseases in someway. I suppose a possible influence of microorganisms in the lungs could be on cystic fibrosis. I wonder if there are microorganisms in the brain that could influence dementias like Alzheimers. I believe there are tons of microorganisms in our guts. I think these could definitely infect autoimmune diseases that have many GI symptoms such as Crohns and IBS. I am very interested in autoimmune diseases. They are so complex. I would love to learn if microorganisms in the body affect other autoimmune diseases.
I feel like most things I’ve learned in relation to microorganisms is in relation with infectious diseases. I think those two things make more intuitive sense together.
