B. Brett Finlay > Quotes

“The word antimicrobrial is a sales feature in soaps, skin lotions, cleaning supplies, food perspectives, plastics, and even fabrics. However, only about one hundred species of microbes are known to actually cause diseases in humans; the vast majority of the thousands of species that inhabit us do not cause any problems, and, in fact, seem to come with serious benefits.”
― B. Brett Finlay, Let Them Eat Dirt: Saving Our Children from an Oversanitized World

“led by Dr. Susan Lynch from the University of California in San Francisco. This study collected dust samples from homes with and without dogs, and showed that upon exposing mice to the different dust samples, the mice that were given dust from homes with dogs were less likely to develop asthma. What’s more, they looked at the type of bacteria in the dust samples and found a specific species, Lactobacillus johnsonii, associated with the improvement of asthma in mice. When they grew this bacterium in the lab and fed it to mice in the absence of any dust, they found that it lowered the risk of asthma, demonstrating that this and perhaps other species of beneficial bacteria, along with the dogs that bring them into households, are responsible for decreasing asthma risks.”
― B. Brett Finlay, Let Them Eat Dirt: How Microbes Can Make Your Child Healthier

“One can imagine a future where you might biobank microbes from your youthful skin in a tube in a freezer, which would become part of your retirement package to boost skin appearance and overall health later in life. This personal biobank could also be useful if you were diagnosed with cancer and needed a bone marrow transplant, or if you suddenly got a C. difficile infection and needed to boost your microbiome at a critical time. We might also see the application of younger persons’ microbes into commercially available products to cultivate the healthful effects of vigorous youthful microbes later in life.”
― B. Brett Finlay, The Whole-Body Microbiome: How to Harness Microbes—Inside and Out—for Lifelong Health

“dementia. The most startling statistic is that individuals who do not brush their teeth daily have a 22 to 65 percent greater risk of developing dementia than those who brush their teeth three times a day!”
― B. Brett Finlay, The Whole-Body Microbiome: How to Harness Microbes—Inside and Out—for Lifelong Health