Other people can infect me with all kinds of diseases and ailments. But can I also get an infection that helps me move forward? More energetic, stronger, etc? Or should it always be negative things?
Answer
Hi Didier,
Yes, you can be infected by something ‘positive’, and that is necessary! If you are just born, you are quite ‘sterile’: your mother gives you a lot at birth! Your house, tongue, gut must be completely occupied with preferably ‘positive’ bacteria. These do a lot of good for you: help with digestion, produce vitamins, occupy places, maintain intestinal transit, boost your immune system, and so on. Once your body is fully colonized, it can maintain itself: the bacteria multiply and then settle permanently. In periods of strong and prolonged use of antibiotics, there may be a need for ‘good’ bacteria again. And those are provided by your environment. Of course you are also susceptible to ‘contamination’, the word that is used for invading, nesting, multiplying and making you sick by a ‘negative’ micro-organism.
When you add it all up, a lot more ‘positive’ happens and only the occasional ‘negative’!
If that isn’t a pretty Christmas message.
Kind regards,
Myriam Meyers
KHLim, Diepenbeek
Answered by
ir. Myriam Meyers
industrial microbiology and biochemistry
Old Market 13 3000 Leuven
https://www.kuleuven.be/
.