What is colonization resistance?
That’s another great point when talking about what role our normal colonizing microbes playing in our health. Let me tell you where that concept came from. In the past researchers used what they called germ-free animal colonies. They’d have colonies of mice or rats that were delivered aseptically and raised in a sterile environment so that they did not contain any microbes on them at all. So, they were called germ-free animals. These animals could stay healthy as long as they stayed in a sterile environment. They could also live as long as their fully colonized counterparts. But, what they found is that if you expose them to any type of either opportunistic pathogen or pathogenic microbes, they were so susceptible to them that they would have very high mortality rates. In comparison, you could take conventionally colonized animals and you could feed them higher numbers of pathogens and they would be fine. This phenomenon of being able to resist colonization and infection by these bad b
