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90% of cells in the human body are non-human, including fungi, bacteria, and viruses. The human gut alone has over 100 trillion microbial cells, and non-human microorganisms outnumber human cells by a factor of 10. Only 1% of all microbiota on and in the body has been identified. People have unique bacterial signatures, with each hand carrying different types of bacteria. Bacteria once thought to exist only outside the human body have been found inside, including on prosthetic hip joints.
Only about 10% of the cells in the human body are actually human cells, the rest are fungi, bacteria, viruses or other non-human cells. The human gut alone has over 100 trillion microbial cells, yet only about 1% of all microbiota on and in the body has actually been identified. Researchers estimate that non-human microorganisms in and on a human body outnumber human cells by a factor of 10.
Learn more about non-human cells:
Although more than 3 million types of microbes are thought to exist, fewer than 8,000 have been described. These microbes make up a third of the Earth’s biomass.
People have unique bacterial signatures. Studies show that people tend to carry around 3,000 bacteria of about 150 species on their hands, but each of a person’s hands has different types of bacteria, with the overlap being less than about 15%.
More and more studies have shown that bacteria that were thought to exist only outside the human body actually exist in the body. For example, hydrothermal vent eubacteria, a type of bacteria that was once found only near deep-sea heat vents, has been found on prosthetic hip joints.
