10% Human: How Your Body's Microbes Hold the Key to Health and Happiness

"A fascinating study of the intertwined lives of microbes and humans. . . a manual for the new, healthy way of being dirty. . . . Read it, and you will learn to love your microbiota.”  — Newsweek

Evolutionary biologist and science writer Alanna Collen’s stunning alarm call concerning the widely-ignored role our gut microbes play in our health and well-being.

You are just 10% human. For every one of the cells that make up the vessel that you call your body, there are nine impostor cells hitching a ride. You are not just flesh and blood, muscle and bone, brain and skin, but also bacteria and fungi. Over your lifetime, you will carry the equivalent weight of five African elephants in microbes. You are not an individual but a colony.

Until recently, we had thought our microbes hardly mattered, but science is revealing a different story, one in which microbes run our bodies and becoming a healthy human is impossible without them.

In this riveting, shocking, and beautifully written book, biologist Alanna Collen draws on the latest scientific research to show how our personal colony of microbes influences our weight, our immune system, our mental health, and even our choice of partner. She argues that so many of our modern diseases—obesity, autism, mental illness, digestive disorders, allergies, autoimmunity afflictions, and even cancer—have their root in our failure to cherish our most fundamental and enduring relationship: that with our personal colony of microbes.

The good news is that unlike our human cells, we can change our microbes for the better. Collen’s book is a revelatory and indispensable guide. Life—and your body—will never seem the same again.

You are just 10% human. For every one of the cells that make up the vessel that you call your body, there are nine impostor cells hitching a ride. You are not just flesh and blood, muscle and bone, brain and skin, but also bacteria and fungi. Over your lifetime, you will carry the equivalent weight of five African elephants in microbes. You are not an individual but a colony.

Until recently, we had thought our microbes hardly mattered, but science is revealing a different story, one in which microbes run our bodies and becoming a healthy human is impossible without them.

In this riveting, shocking, and beautifully written book, biologist Alanna Collen draws on the latest scientific research to show how our personal colony of microbes influences our weight, our immune system, our mental health, and even our choice of partner. She argues that so many of our modern diseases—obesity, autism, mental illness, digestive disorders, allergies, autoimmunity afflictions, and even cancer—have their root in our failure to cherish our most fundamental and enduring relationship: that with our personal colony of microbes.

Many of the questions about modern diseases left unanswered by the Human Genome Project are illuminated by this new science. And the good news is that unlike our human cells, we can change our microbes for the better. Collen’s book is a revelatory and indispensable guide. It is science writing at its most relevant: life—and your body—will never seem the same again.

There’s more to being human than you think.

Have you ever wondered why so many people are overweight? Or why nearly half of youngsters have allergies? Has it ever seemed strange that depression is so common? Or that more and more children are being diagnosed with autism?

Using the latest scientific research, Alanna Collen reveals the link between ill health and the body’s community of microbes. Many of the modern illnesses we accept as part of life are instead newly emerging conditions brought on by our failure to cherish the extension of our human cells: our microbes.

In 10% Human, Collen explains how messing with your microbes can affect your metabolism, your mind, and your immune system; why antibiotics, C-sections, and infant formula can cause collateral damage; and how diet can restore a beneficial community of microbes. 10% Human is an alarm call on behalf of our most faithful companions.