In “The Lives of a Cell”, L. Thomas restated a hitherto prosaic observation as a profound conjecture, i.e, that mitochondria - the earliest aerobic bacteria - may have “created” us as a ‘symbiont utilitarian layer’ for their survival. The same can be argued for the bacteria resident in the gastrointestinal system which, to put it bluntly, may have ‘created’ us in order to feed them. There are more bacteria in the human body (>500 species) than there are human cells. Most of these reside in the gut and the majority (> 90%) belong to two phyla, the Firmicutes (which include Clostridium, Streptococcus and Staphylococcus), and the Bacteroidetes (which include Flavobacterium). Aside from the sobering philosophical issues about ‘free will’ that such a scenario raises (separately from quantum mechanics), it seems logically imperative that the colonization of the human body by bacteria, or the colonization of human cells on bacteria, must be inextricably intertwined with regard to the survival of the two symbionts.
KEY WORDS: IPEC, Macromolecular excipients, biological effects, microbial fermentation products, short chain fatty acids, gut microbiota, cellulosic excipients, colonic fermentation, pharmaceutical excipient
Editorial Board, Journal of Excipients and Food Chemicals