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I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life

Ed Yong

Start date: August 1, 2017

Finish date: August 31, 2017

Discussion: Book Club 2017

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Book Club 2017

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What Members Thought

Nov 04, 2016 David Rubenstein rated it it was amazing

Shelves: science, audiobook, biology

This is a fascinating book about the microbes inside all of us, and inside other animals as well. Now, it is often said that there are ten times as many bacteria in our bodies as there are cells. This, it turns out, is probably an over-estimate; the number of bacteria is probably in the same ballpark as the number of cells. But still, that is a lot!

This book goes into detail about the amazing partnerships--the symbioses--between microbes and large organisms, mostly animals and humans. Microbes a ...more

80 likes · Like · see review

Sep 14, 2019 Jim rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: science, 1audio, 2non-fiction, animals

The first paragraph of the book's description perfectly describes it for me. Yong didn't just tell me how important my microbiome is, by the end of book, I felt it. There he really missed a perfect picture for me - that of Pigpen from the Peanuts strip by Charles Shultz. We aren't discrete beings making our lonely way through the world, but continually changing clouds of bacteria influencing & being influenced by our surroundings plant, animal, & mineral due to our incredible ecologies. That's n The first paragraph of the book's description perfectly describes it for me. Yong didn't just tell me how important my microbiome is, by the end of book, I felt it. There he really missed a perfect picture for me - that of Pigpen from the Peanuts strip by Charles Shultz. We aren't discrete beings making our lonely way through the world, but continually changing clouds of bacteria influencing & being influenced by our surroundings plant, animal, & mineral due to our incredible ecologies. That's not an overstatement & Yong gives plenty of examples throughout the book.

We didn't evolve in a vacuum, bacteria have constantly drenched every living organism. Most don't have much to do with us, but many find a home within the newcomers, the more complex hosts, & they act like good house guests. Sometimes they move in to stay & provide services (symbiot). Occasionally they get out of line (disbiosis) & far more rarely they're bad. He gives fascinating examples of all states.

He really shined with his descriptions of how one variety mosquitoes are altered to not carry disease. I've heard about such efforts, but never knew any of the methods. He'd mentioned & had given enough details about the bacterial strain Wolbachia that when he got around to telling how scientists were infecting mosquitoes that carried Dengue fever with it in an attempt to eradicate the disease, it made perfect sense & I'm not a scientist of any sort. IOW, his explanations were all good & accessible.

His discussion of balances within the microbiotic community were especially interesting to me since both my wife & daughter have stomach issues. I had no idea how much or quickly such things could change. A mere change in diet of a day can completely change the balance of our gut bacteria while a course of antibiotics can be catastrophic. Of course, we have to balance the risks of destroying gut bacteria against dying of another infection that the antibiotic is being taken for. Often there isn't a definite or even a good answer, but a guess based on probabilities. It's messy & defies simplification so beware of miracle cures. In a few decades a doctor might be able to tailor a bacterial cocktail for your particular symptoms & biome, but the science is in its infancy.

One of the places it is starting is with Fecal Matter Transfer (FMT). Gross, but it's been routinely carried out for those whose systems are in such distress that they're losing weight & wearing diapers. A colonoscopy that plants a donor's poop up their own intestines often fixes the problem, at least for a time. Now they're refining this to cultures that are contained in a capsule. yes, they give out a poo pill!

Apparently our species' aversion to eating poo isn't exactly the norm in the animal kingdom. Rabbits & rats have to eat their own or else they get a vitamin deficiency. Other species regularly eat other's poo & it's one way beneficial bacteria spread & inoculate them. It can also lead to similar smells among them fostering a sense of community. Who knew? Fascinating!

I was really surprised by the example of Sea World keeping the dolphin's water too clean. Anyone who has had an aquarium knows it takes a while to balance the system & clear up the water. It's not dirt, but the bio-balance, so it's often best to start a new tank by taking water from an existing aquarium. I never changed more than 1/3 of the water per week, a rule of thumb that was told to me early on by seemingly everyone. Ivory tower syndrome?

While this is rather long & sagged a bit about 2/3-3/4 of the way through (at least I wandered a bit) I highly recommend reading it all the way through. The end is great & well worth the journey. My edition was well narrated & easily understood. I did get the ebook to refer to, but didn't have to very often - mostly just for the name & spelling of some terms & names.

Highly recommended! ...more

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Dec 23, 2016 Casey rated it really liked it

Shelves: knowledge-is-good

"Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes." - Walt Whitman

I'm a priori inclined to like bacteria. My favorite is Oenococcus Oeni, even though that's not the only bacteria that causes the poorly-named malolactic fermentation during winemaking (malolactic conversion is better jargon, but I digress). No one really extols the virtues of super young red wine (I mean, besides those marketing masters in Beaujolais, but I'm firmly of the opinion that, ...more

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Nov 14, 2017 bup rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: science, 2017, i-wonder-why-i-have-no-friends

Biology is messy and complicated. If there's one lesson to pull out of this book, that may be it.

If you wanted to rid a forest of poison ivy, you could burn it down. However, there would be some downsides to that approach. And that approach is how humans have dealt with bacteria since germ theory first emerged in the late 1800's. Bacteria aren't evil. Some are necessary. Others aren't necessary but do a good job crowding out the ones that do humans real harm. So creating temporarily germ-free sp ...more

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Oct 06, 2016 Jennifer rated it it was amazing

Really fantastic overview of the microbes that share the world with us (dominate is actually more like it!). I have been interested in the antibiotic promise of phages but this book recalled piqued my interest in improving infection control by enlisting the use of microbes instead of eliminating everything microbial. I also appreciated the idea that toilets that are scrubbed less are populated with fewer fecal germs

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Jul 07, 2019 Bel rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, science, health-and-medicine, audiobooked

Fascinating

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Nov 29, 2016 Clay rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction

Recommended to me by a friend, this book magnifies the captivating world of microbes. It leads you through huge paradigm shifts over the years in regards to the microbial world and the riveting direction that research is taking. If pop-science books are your jam or if you are interested in the pro-biotic and fecal-transplant rhetoric in the world today, consider reading this work by Ed Young.

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Aug 06, 2017 Edie Kestenbaum rated it liked it

Shelves: science, books-read-2017

I think my reading of the book was negatively impacted by the fact that I had to stop and start so much due to its popularity at the library! May need to read again at some point and re-evaluate.

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Aug 14, 2017 Emily Brown rated it it was amazing

Shelves: didnotfinish, science, kindle, new-scientist-review

READ THIS BOOK!! I didn't finish it because I majored in microbiology, so it was old hat to me. Well-written and definitely for laypeople and scientists!! ...more

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