10% Human by Alanna Collen

10% Human by Alanna Collen

"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.

Alanna Collen is a science writer with a master's degree in biology from Imperial College London and a PhD in evolutionary biology from the Zoological Society of London and University College London. She's a well-traveled biologist, a bat echolocation expert, and an unintentional tropical illness collector. Collen has written for the Sunday Times Magazine and ARKive.org on wildlife during her scientific career. She has made appearances on BBC Radio 4's The Tribes of Science and Saturday Live, as well as BBC One's adventure-wildlife show Lost Land of the Volcano. Her spouse and she live in Bedfordshire, UK.