The microbial flora, also called microbiota, designates all the microorganisms in a specific environment. In humans, the microbiota includes bacteria, fungi, viruses and is found on the skin, in the intestine and in the mucous membranes.
100,000 billion: this is the number of bacteria present in our intestinal flora! This number surely shocks you but they play an essential role in digestion. They help us digest food that we could not assimilate without them and provide certain amino acids and vitamins. The microbiota also participates in the activation of our lymphocytes, which are immune cells that destroy pathogens. We talk about symbiosis between the microbiota and the human, neither can survive without the other.
This set of micro-organisms appears from our birth and is considered mature around 3 or 4 years old.
Several factors can modify the range of microbiota contained in our body: diet, lifestyle, stress, taking antibiotics or even the environment!
A simple imbalance of this flora can be enough to cause various pathologies, more or less serious such as diabetes, obesity, Parkinson's disease, dysregulation of the immunity of autoimmune diseases such as Crohn's.
In short: it is essential to our life.