Innerspace
One of the more influential movies from my childhood was Honey I Shrunk the Kids. Rick Moranis was a big star and it played on my vague memories of another 80s movie, Innerspace. To the writers, the idea of shrinking electronics and having them still be workable was so ridiculous. You had to shrink down full size electronics via a shrinking ray (ala Willy Wonka) that would also shrink down a crew to pilot it.
Why did the crew have to go along? Why did they have to be shrunk? The whole plot would fall apart if a device that would traverse the body was microscopic, disposable and unmanned.
I thought about these movies after I put my daughter’s plastic water bottle in the dishwasher and it came out shrunken but still usable. I also thought about it after I had an unfortunate experience switching probiotics.
I finished off one bottle of probiotics, for which I’d slowly upped my dosage to a few grams a day, and then switched willy-nilly to a new brand without tapering. The result was what I envisioned to be a Lord Of The Rings style battle inside my intestines between the incumbent bacteria and the new strains.
While we know that things happen inside of us and that our microbiome is important, we don’t really understand it on a regularly basis. We know when things go wrong but not as the damage is accumulating. Our 3-pound microbiome outnumbers our own cells.
There are several startups that are working on this issue and trying to bring to consumers an easy way to test and update their microbiome. Flore is one example. They offer genetic sequencing and ten tailoring of probiotic supplements to help improve gut health. Gut health has been linked to resilience against depression…
When we dream of a future where we’ll be much healthier as a result of technology, tailored microbiome probiotics are one vehicle that could have a dramatic impact. Let’s hope!
