Scientists have discovered something amazing in the forests of the Amazon, and it may be one that can help destroy or manage the super bugs that continue to kill thousands every year.
In one of the biggest indigenous territories in Amazon Rivers between Brazil and Venezuela are the Yanomami, who now occupies more than 17 million hectares of land, home to over 200 villages.
Despite being incredibly large, the people, who were believed to have traveled through the Bering Straits and settled in this part of South America about 15,000 years before, are isolated. They live together as a united group, each tribe having only one house to call a home, which is then equally divided among families. They remain foragers and hunters, who also grow their own food including bananas.
In 2009, a group of researchers arrived in an undisclosed village that was interestingly unmapped. There, they were able to collect samples through swabs of the mouth, feces, and skin.
Back in the United States, they analyzed the DNA found in these samples and compared their analysis to that of the American population. They then found out that the Yanonami tribe had a more diverse bacterial colony than the Westerners. In fact, their bacteria are more diverse than other indigenous groups like those in Malawi. The most enlightening of all is that some of these bacteria are the reasons why the indigenous tribe continues to be generally healthy even if they lack access to medications. Some of these bacteria, after all, can resist infection and prevent kidney stones.
Genetic tests, meanwhile, revealed that they tend to carry genes that can help their body resist antibiotic-resistant bugs, or the super bugs. These types of bacteria are so difficult to treat and continue to infect more than a million people each year.
The discoveries also broached a very important question: is the more modern Western culture stripping the body with the essential bacteria?