Bacterial Assault

Every time you take a breath you inhale a wallop of bugs. Bacteria are present in just about every breath of air you take. The question then becomes, how do your airways protect you from a multitude of on-going infections?

Turns out that when bacteria are inhaled through a snort, tiny fluid-filled sacs called exosomes directly attack the bacteria. Uber-protective anti-microbial proteins also head over to the battle so they can aid in on the attack. The whole idea is to deal with the invaders locally so the rest of you doesn’t have to.

All this is taking place inside your nasal cavities and sinuses. You have microbial life inside here, bacteria, fungi and viruses, just like you have microbial life called your microbiome inside your colon.

When cells at the front of your nasal biome (also referred to as nares biome), detect an “offending” bacterial invader, they trigger a receptor called TLR4. This receptor then “tickles” exosome releases.

Rally Cry

Within five minutes your immune system rallies. Exposure/response—and within five minutes your immune army shows up to get rid of invading terrorists.

Swarms of exosomes vaccinate, so to speak, your airways against microbes before the rest of your cells ever need to see or deal with them.

Your nasal immune system is always working over time to protect the rest of YOU!

But what if your nose is not up to the task?

We have dirtier air. Contemporary air contains growing amounts of damaging small particulate matter, that comes from tire dust from freeways, or dust from homes and building being torn down miles afar yet blown your way, or from pesticides sprayed on golf courses four streets up, or by increasing levels of pollen and mold. Even your beloved pet can harbor bacteria inside their nostrils that gets deposited onto your pillow and inhaled by you and/or your partner as you both sleep.

All this seems to be happening more and more as the insults from our dirty world get more and more. Then the bacteria—picked up from inhaled antigens, from the inside of your beloved doggie’s nose, from touching your hand to a barbell at the gym and then unconsciously rubbing or picking your nose, from a spoon at a salad bar that you touch and then rub your nose—enters your sinus (nares) biome.

If your biome allies aren’t up to it, can’t handle it, then your sinus biomes becomes dysbiotic! You end up having more “bad” than “good” bugs inside your nasal cavity and sinuses. Throughout the day, as you walk and talk, you can swallow enough to head south, and adversely effect those other biomes such as your small or large intestines.

You silently swallow what dribbles down into your mouth… 24/7.

Overall Health

Who knew that your dysbiotic sinuses might be one of the reasons you are not responding to your health program, your Epstein Barr Viral blood levels are not going down, your migraines aren’t going away, or you just don’t feel your best even though you are doing everything right for your health and downing green drinks like crazy.

Is your nose’s inability to stand up to microbial assaults part of your overall health issue?

These are the new talks I am giving to medical doctors and pharmacists across the country related to the “cross-talk” between all our biomes. Our sinuses, esophagus, breast, lung, colon, endometrium, prostate, skin, and vaginal biomes (and more) are exchanging information while you read these words. Even your eyes have a biome. It’s called the ocular biome, which by the way has the least amount of microbes of any biome you own.

Breast Tissue Biomes

The Cleveland Clinic found that women with breast cancer have different bacteria growing inside their bodies and boobs, compared to breast tissue and urine samples from women going in for cosmetic surgery that were cancer free.

Healthy breasts have higher levels of health-promoting bacteria called Methylbacterium. These differences have even been found inside sentinel node biopsies (surgical look-see into the first several lymph nodes by which the breast drains or house-cleans).

For more about breast biomes listen to my podcast, MICROBIOMES, BREAST MILK BIOMES, BREAST CANCER BIOMES & BIOME CROSS-TALK

The Best You

Getting really well, at your core level—so you can be the “best version of yourself” and live your life out loud, dream your dreams and go on to make them come true— means assessing the health of “all your biomes”.

You gotta know which ones aren’t well, and then fix them.

Remember, dysbiosis means you have more BAD than good microbial life. These bad bugs can live in any nook and cranny, any biome throughout your body.  And all the while, the bad bugs are sending the rest of your tissues nasty emails.

Bad bugs in bad biomes are quietly stalking your physiology.

Dysbiosis is potentially anywhere in any hidden alcove inside your entire physiologic real estate.

Measurement

How do we measure nares biome health? By swabs, which are then, cultured to see what grows? You or your practitioner can order a nares bacterial, nares fungal and then a biofilm reflexive test—if either of the first two are found to be growing bad stuff. If the infections found are resistant to three or more medications, this is then called “Marcon’s Positive”, suggesting a very depressed immune system that needs lots more sleuthing and bio-hacking to get you truly well.

So What

If your nares biomes demonstrate dysbiosis, these can be treated with medication, or specialized and individualized herbal/critter fighting sprays, by an in-the-know practitioner.

Just as we are learning that all of your cells are talking to each other all of the time, so are your biomes.

Perhaps that chronic issue in your gut might be coming from up your nose.

Who’d a thunked it? Or should I query, sniffed it?

 

References

Exosome swarms eliminate airway pathogens and provide passive epithelial immuno-protection through nitric oxide. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 2018; DOI: 10.1016/j.jaci.2018.08.046

The commensal lifestyle of Staphylococcus aureus and its interactions with the nasal microbiota. Krismer B et al. Nat Rev Microbiol. 2017 Oct 12;15(11):675-687. doi: 10.1038/nrmicro.2017.104.

The association between anterior nares and nasopharyngeal microbiota in infants hospitalized for bronchiolitis. Microbiome. 2018 Jan 3;6(1):2. doi: 10.1186/s40168-017-0385-0.

Maturation of the infant microbiome community structure and function across multiple body sites and in relation to mode of delivery. Chu DM et al. Nat Med. 2017 Mar;23(3):314-326. doi: 10.1038/nm.4272. Epub 2017 Jan 23.

The effect of cigarette smoking on the oral and nasal microbiota. Yu G et al. Microbiome. 2017 Jan 17;5(1):3. doi: 10.1186/s40168-016-0226-6.

A Stoichioproteomic Analysis of Samples from the Human Microbiome Project. Front Microbiol. 2017 Jul 18;8:1119. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2017.01119. eCollection 2017.

Oncotarget. 2017 Aug 14;8(50):88122-88138. doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.21490. eCollection 2017 Oct 20. Breast tissue, oral and urinary microbiomes in breast cancer.

The Microbiota of Breast Tissue and Its Association with Breast Cancer. Urbaniak C et al. Appl Environ Microbiol. 2016 Jul 29;82(16):5039-48. doi: 10.1128/AEM.01235-16. Print 2016 Aug 15.

Prog Mol Biol Transl Sci. 2017;151:217-229. doi: 10.1016/bs.pmbts.2017.07.004. Epub 2017 Aug 31. Microbiota and Breast Cancer.

The Intestinal Microbiome and Estrogen Receptor-Positive Female Breast Cancer. Kwa M et al. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2016 Apr 22;108(8). doi: 10.1093/jnci/djw029. Print 2016 Aug.

Microbiota and Breast Cancer. Mani S et al. Prog Mol Biol Transl Sci. 2017;151:217-229. doi: 10.1016/bs.pmbts.2017.07.004. Epub 2017 Aug 31.

Microbial dysbiosis is associated with human breast cancer. PLoS One. 2014 Jan 8;9(1):e83744. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0083744. eCollection 2014