Found a new bacteriophage virus that could be present in half of the world's population. It is harmless, but it influences bacteria in our intestines related to obesity or diabetes.
Continuous human expansion leads us to think that we have less and less to discover on Earth. We couldn't be more wrong. For example, we only know about a third of the five million different species estimated to live on the planet. In the seas and oceans, possibly two-thirds of all submerged life is totally new to science. And when we look inside our body the magnitude of the unknown only increases. Taking this into account, the finding made this week by researchers from Europe and the US is not so surprising. It is a new virus that lives in our digestive system and that until now had gone completely unnoticed. Scientists estimate that it is present in half of the world's population, that is, about 3.5 billion people.
The virus is harmless and that is why it has been able to slip away despite being as old as mankind , according to its discoverers. The pathogen is a bacteriophage and attacks only certain bacteria that live in the intestinal tract. The researchers found it by chance while looking for virus DNA in stool samples taken from various volunteers. They then compared the finding with hundreds of samples from people from the US, Europe and South Korea and found the exact same viral sequence again. The new pathogen, crAssphage, possibly influences ailments such as obesity or diabetes, as it attacks a type of bacteria in our intestinal flora related to these diseases.
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