Microbes are tiny, microscopic organisms that are found everywhere – in plants and animals as well as in the human body. Some microbes cause disease while others are essential for a healthy life, and we need them to exist.
In a recent article published in The Guardian, Tim Spector, a professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London, writes that a 2014 study involving 25 healthy volunteers conducted in the United States explored for the first time what binge drinking does to a person’s microbes:
Those with the worst symptoms and changes in blood tests had the highest levels of toxins coming from the cell walls of their gut microbes. These toxins (called LPS) had somehow leaked out of their intestines, as a result of the inflammation the alcohol had produced. Within their guts the alcohol produced a brief, but large increase in the microbe species that were pro-inflammatory, stimulating the immune system as if it were under attack and contributing to the general sick-feeling so typical of hangovers.