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This video discusses animals and organisms that live inside the human body. This includes insects, arthropods, bacteria, fungi, and worms. It answers the following questions:
What are face mites?
What are eyelash mites?
What organisms live inside me?
What organisms live inside humans?
Where do bacteria live inside humans?
What fungi live inside humans?
What are itch mites?
What is hookworm?
What insects live inside people?
Transcript
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.