00:00If you looked at your face under a microscope, it looks something like this.
00:08These are hairs. But what are these? They're coming out of the base of every hair follicle.
00:17These are tails from this animal, a face mite. Face mites live their lives
00:27face down inside your hair follicles, feasting on this stuff, the greasy oil that your skin
00:34secretes. You likely have thousands of these mites burrowing into your face right now,
00:41which sounds disgusting, but it's totally normal. And that makes me wonder,
00:47what else lives inside of our bodies?
00:50Whoa. This circle represents all of the cells inside of your body. Around 44% are your cells.
01:06The rest of the cells make up other organisms. Most of the stuff inside you is not you.
01:16But what is it? Fungi, worms, arthropods, and tons of bacteria. Inside your body,
01:28bacteria move around, they communicate, they form complex colonies with divisions of labor.
01:36But here's my question. Where do bacteria live inside of our bodies?
01:43Here's a photo of bacteria on the surface of a human tooth. Here's another of bacteria on
01:54the human cheek. Most of the bacteria are inside your gastrointestinal system,
02:00and I assumed they just hung out there, passively living off your stomach acid.
02:07But that's not really how it works. Sometimes we eat carbohydrates that we cannot digest,
02:15but the bacteria inside our gut can take those carbs, break them down, and turn them into other
02:22things that our cells can digest. We get 10% of our calories from this bacterial poop. So then,
02:34in a way, when we eat, we're not entirely feeding ourselves. We're feeding the bacteria
02:41in our intestines and then absorbing whatever those bacteria poop out. Which makes me wonder,
02:50are there ways we can help the bacteria in our gut so they can keep helping us?
02:57Yes, there are. We'll go over more things that are living inside of you right now. But first,
03:07I'd like to tell you a little bit about this video's sponsor, Seed. This is a DSO1 daily
03:14symbiotic. There's some important things inside. This is something called a prebiotic, basically
03:23a food specifically for the bacteria in your gut. And inside this second capsule is a probiotic,
03:33strains of good bacteria that have been studied for health benefits. It's a capsule inside another
03:40capsule to help make sure the probiotic makes it to your small intestine. But what's the point?
03:47Well, the bacteria strains used in probiotics are studied for their effectiveness at supporting
03:54gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, and skin health. Between you and me, sometimes I get a little
04:01bloaty and constipated, and this helps support me in those areas. If you're interested in trying it
04:09out, use my code oddanimal25 for 25% off Seed's DSO1 daily symbiotic. But bacteria aren't the only
04:18thing living on your body. What's the next biggest group in this graph? Fungi.
04:28I thought people were infected by fungi,
04:32like it comes from somewhere else and infects your body like a disease.
04:39But that's not true. Everybody has fungus growing on them at all times. Here are three that are
04:47growing on you right now. In the corners of your mouth, you'll find this fungus, candida.
04:58Coating your hands is a fair amount of this one, trichosporon. And inside your throat right now
05:06is a bunch of aspergillus. See those tiny circles?
05:14They're small spores. They can break off, and you can breathe these spores out.
05:23If someone else breathes them in, your aspergillus can start growing inside their throat.
05:33Which makes me think, it seems that microorganisms that grow on or inside of us
05:41tend to stay in the same place, like on our skin or in our gut. For example, the human itch mite.
05:51They dig small burrows in our skin, and they mate, lay eggs, and live their entire life cycles
05:58in these burrows. But do any of these organisms move around more, like from one place to another?
06:10Ah, some do. This is a hookworm. It's attached to someone's intestine.
06:19If we look at a hookworm's face, it has these big plates on them.
06:24Those are teeth that they use to latch on to the intestinal walls and feed on our blood.
06:32But they don't spend their entire lives in our small intestines. Hookworm larvae start outside
06:40of your body, in the soil. They often burrow into your body through your feet. Once they get into
06:50your feet, they'll enter your bloodstream. Your bloodstream will carry them all the way up to
06:59your lungs. Inside your lungs, they'll move up your respiratory tract. They'll literally climb
07:07up your throat, where you'll probably cough them up and swallow them down your esophagus.
07:14Now they'll enter your gastrointestinal tract, where they'll make their way down to your small
07:20intestine. There, they'll hook themselves onto your intestinal walls and start feeding on your
07:26blood. Eventually, they'll lay eggs, which you will poop out. The eggs will hatch outside of
07:34your body, and the entire process will begin again.
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