We have some bacteria, known as normal flora, found on the palm and fingers of the hand. It is not harmful to humans, it in fact protects us from many damaging microbes in the environment. When you eat with your hands, the flora in the fingers is swallowed. It is beneficial for health and for various body parts such as the mouth, throat, and intestine, and it promotes healthy digestion in the gut. Handling food with your fingers releases digestive juices and enzymes. Also, millions of nerve endings in your fingers relay the message that you’re about to eat, including the temperature of the food, and texture of food, thereby prepping the stomach for digestion.
Benefits of the Normal Flora
There is an increased ability of the host to nourish itself since the bacteria Produce vitamins that the human body is ineffective to give forth like vitamin B12 and vitamin K.
They help digest food as they break down foodstuffs that are normally indigestible by the host into forms that are easily digestible by the hosts.
The Normal flora protects the host against infection by pathogenic organisms. similarly, this takes place as the normal flora out-competes the invader for available nutrients, therefore, starving the invader and preventing it from reproducing. Likewise, the normal flora may pre-occupy the favorable ecological niches for bacteria, e.g. the intestinal villi, so confronting the invading pathogen with the trouble of getting somewhere to anchor itself. Similarly, certain members of the normal flora produce anti-bacterial chemicals as a side product of their metabolism, therefore, taking a local antibiotic effect which hinders the invader.
The Normal flora helps in hiking up ones' immune system. The germ-free animals given birth to and brought up in a germ free environment are very susceptible to disease when transferred from the germ free environment since their immune system is still underdeveloped. Therefore, the presence of the Normal flora helps in protecting the human body from highly pathogenic organisms.
They synthesizes and excrete vitamins in surplus of their individual wants, which are useful to the host and which can be taken in as nutrients. For instance, in humans' body, enteric microorganisms produce and discharge Vitamin K and B12 whereas lactic acid microorganisms release vitamin B that are mostly utilized by the host as nutrients.
The microbes as well harbor colonization by microorganisms by contending for attachment places as well as for the essential nutrients. Consequently, this is considered their most significant profitable effect, that presents itself in the mouth, the bowel, the epidermis as well as in the vaginal epithelial tissues.
The Microbes induces the production of natural antibodies and thus contribute to the immunity in the human body. likewise by stimulating low levels of circulating and secretory antibodies, they enhance the bodies' immunity.
It may also counteract other microorganisms through the output of substances that stamp down and bottle up non-endemic classifications. The intestinal microorganisms fabricate a diversity of materials ranging from non-distinct fatty acids to distinct bacteriocins, that stamp and kill other microorganisms.
The microorganisms induce the growth of particular body tissues which include the individual lymphatic tissues and the caecum within the GI region.The caecum of bacterium-free organisms is thin walled, filled with fluids a well as enlarged in size in comparison to the ones in standard animals. Likewise, found upon the capacity to withstand immunological stimulation, the enteric lymphatic materials of the Conventional animals are highly developed as compared to those of the germ-free animals.
They stimulate an immunological response, in particular, an antibody-mediated immune response as they act as antigens in the human body. Low volumes of antibodies brought forth against the constituents of the microbes are acknowledged to respond with particular related microorganisms, and thus preventing infection as well as invasion of the human body. The antibodies fabricated against the antigen ingredients of the microbes are at times known as inborn antibodies, and which lack in bacterium-free organisms.
Intestinal human flora carry out a diverseness of all-important metabolic reactions that give rise to various compounds. The compounds include vitamins B12 and K and gas.
n 1938, Price63 established that bacteria recovered from the hands could be divided into two categories, namely resident or transient. The resident flora (resident microbiota) consists of microorganisms residing under the superficial cells of the stratum corneum and can also be found on the surface of the skin.64,65 Staphylococcus epidermidis is the dominant species,66 and oxacillin resistance is extraordinarily high, particularly among HCWs.67 Other resident bacteria include S. hominis and other coagulase-negative staphylococci, followed by coryneform bacteria (propionibacteria, corynebacteria, dermobacteria, and micrococci).68 Among fungi, the most common genus of the resident skin flora, when present, is Pityrosporum (Malassezia) spp.69. Resident flora has two main protective functions: microbial antagonism and the competition for nutrients in the ecosystem.70 In general, resident flora is less likely to be associated with infections, but may cause infections in sterile body cavities, the eyes, or on non-intact skin.71
