The article that I chose was titled, "Promiscuous Bacteria Gone Wild: Why Sushi gives more energy to the Japanese," was written by Sharon Begley, and was published in Newsweek on April 7, 2010. The link to this article is: http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thehumancondition
/archive/2010/04/07/promiscuous-bacteria-gone-wild-why-sushi-gives-more-energy-to-the-japanese.aspx
It discussed the phenomenon of why people of Japanese origin seem to be able to extract energy from sushi, and not American or other non-Japanese people. They were specifically talking about the seaweed that generally is wrapped around sushi. Apparently, there is a unique kind of bacteria that is able to digest the seaweed because they have a certain kind of gene that is only found in the intestines of Japanese people. Individuals not of Japanese descent, Americans, for example, get absolutely no nutritional value out of eating this particular kind of seaweed, because they lack the bacteria that contain the gene for proper digestion. Americans can digest it without a problem; they simply are unable to utilize the energy. Some are skeptical and ask how the gene gets transferred into the intestines. It is still somewhat of a puzzle, but it is suggested that many decades ago, when people ate seaweed that had not been cleaned or sterilized, they acquired some of the bacteria that had the gene, and this gene then got transferred to the other bacteria existing in the intestines. This theory is widely scrutinized, however. The article concluded that it was not possible for other people to get the gene just from eating bacteria that typically lives on seaweed. Bacteria only transfers information in the right conditions, so it is difficult to make it happen. In the article it explains, "that the special conditions that allow such gene transfer 'are probably not often encountered.'"
Even though this article does not directly relate to a specific epidemic or a disease, it does have a lot to do with our class and what we have learned this year. We have studied bacteria in almost every unit we do, like the immune system or our bacteria unit. One thing that connects to the article is when we learned about normal bacteria flora in the immune system unit. There are millions of bacteria living on the skin, and this prevents harmful, pathogenic bacteria from settling down and starting a colony. This is also true for the intestines. There is bacteria such as E. coli, which synthesize vitamin K that is necessary for healthy blood clotting. We also learned a little bit about transformation, which is when one bacteria transfers a plasmid (piece of DNA) to another bacteria. In this article it was the plasmid for digesting a specific kind of seaweed. This just shows you how unique and specialized bacteria are and how many different kinds inhabit our world and our intestines.
/archive/2010/04/07/promiscuous-bacteria-gone-wild-why-sushi-gives-more-energy-to-the-japanese.aspx
It discussed the phenomenon of why people of Japanese origin seem to be able to extract energy from sushi, and not American or other non-Japanese people. They were specifically talking about the seaweed that generally is wrapped around sushi. Apparently, there is a unique kind of bacteria that is able to digest the seaweed because they have a certain kind of gene that is only found in the intestines of Japanese people. Individuals not of Japanese descent, Americans, for example, get absolutely no nutritional value out of eating this particular kind of seaweed, because they lack the bacteria that contain the gene for proper digestion. Americans can digest it without a problem; they simply are unable to utilize the energy. Some are skeptical and ask how the gene gets transferred into the intestines. It is still somewhat of a puzzle, but it is suggested that many decades ago, when people ate seaweed that had not been cleaned or sterilized, they acquired some of the bacteria that had the gene, and this gene then got transferred to the other bacteria existing in the intestines. This theory is widely scrutinized, however. The article concluded that it was not possible for other people to get the gene just from eating bacteria that typically lives on seaweed. Bacteria only transfers information in the right conditions, so it is difficult to make it happen. In the article it explains, "that the special conditions that allow such gene transfer 'are probably not often encountered.'"
Even though this article does not directly relate to a specific epidemic or a disease, it does have a lot to do with our class and what we have learned this year. We have studied bacteria in almost every unit we do, like the immune system or our bacteria unit. One thing that connects to the article is when we learned about normal bacteria flora in the immune system unit. There are millions of bacteria living on the skin, and this prevents harmful, pathogenic bacteria from settling down and starting a colony. This is also true for the intestines. There is bacteria such as E. coli, which synthesize vitamin K that is necessary for healthy blood clotting. We also learned a little bit about transformation, which is when one bacteria transfers a plasmid (piece of DNA) to another bacteria. In this article it was the plasmid for digesting a specific kind of seaweed. This just shows you how unique and specialized bacteria are and how many different kinds inhabit our world and our intestines.
I thought this blog post was very interesting and surprising. Because all humans are one specie, I never really considered certain nationalities to have an upperhand over others when it came to nutrition. I always just figured if you ate poorly you would be unhealthy and if you ate well you would be healthier, despite what country you are from. I also thought Suha did a really good job connecting this article to what we've learned in class especially because the over all concept didn't have much to do with any epidemics.
ReplyDeleteI though that this was really, really interesting! I never knew that the sushi could cause any kind of energy boost, or that it wouldn't cause that for non Japanese people. I think it's cool to see how culture/ethnicity effects how people's bodies work.
ReplyDeleteI love sushi! I thought this article was very intrigueing. It grabbed my attention right away. It's so hard to fathom that just because someone is from a different country, they can have a certain bacteria that no one else attains. I knew sushi was healthy but I didn't know we obtained no energy from it, only the Japanese. I'm very curious about this bacteria and wonder why it exists only in the Japanese. I bet all the theories are really interesting. I think Suha did an outstanding job accossiating our class to this article. The connections were completely relevant and she made me see how what we learn in class connects to the real world.
ReplyDeleteI thought this post was very interesting because I have never heard of this before. I never would have guessed that bacteria in a Japaneses' intestines would help them to get more energy out of the seaweed than others. It was interesting to learn that not everyone's body's are the same and some may have ethnic differences which I never had thought existed. I thought this was a great article because it wasn't about another disease so it was refreshing.
ReplyDeleteAs others have previously commented, I did not expect that one part of the human species would have an advantage when it came to properly digesting food. We seem to be unitentionally taught that we are more or less equal in the way we process what we eat and how we obtain energy. I would be interested to see the scientists explore this further and read an article explaining the real reason for this.
ReplyDeleteI thought that this article was very interesting. I did not know that only Japanese were able to get a certain energy from eating sushi, I though it was the same for everyone. It is interesting to see that not all human bodys react to food in the same way. I would have never thought of that. This article taught me something I did not know before and makes me wonder how other foods can affect people, like the sushi did.
ReplyDeleteThis article was very interesting. I wonder what sort of environmental factors cause the different kind of bacteria to be present in the intestines of Japanese people. It made me wonder about how scientists could go about figuring out where this gene came from and how it got into the intestine. I would venture to guess that they would have to go around to different parts of the world and find environmental differences or differences in how people are raised or what different things they are exposed to. I also agree with what everyone above has said about being surprised that there are subtle differences like this even within our own species.
ReplyDelete