Drawing of two masked Jurupixuna Amerindians, a now extinct Amazonian tribe, registered during Alexandre Rodrigues Ferreira’s naturalist expedition to the Amazon (1783–93) for the Portuguese crown.

New Post has been published on http://www.newsnish.com/technology/science/amazonian-tribe-study-shows-how-human-bodily-bacteria-is-changing/

Amazonian Tribe Study Shows How Human Bodily Bacteria is Changing

Everyone’s body is brimming with bacteria, and these microbes do plenty of good things like building the immune system and helping digestion. But modern diets, antibiotics and hygiene seem to be reducing the range of microbes occupying our anatomy. A study published on Friday looking at the gut, mouth and skin microbes in people from a small, isolated tribe in southern Venezuela’s Amazonian jungles shows just how much modern life may be altering humankind’s bodily bacteria.

The Yanomami villagers, secluded from the outside world until 2009, possessed the most diverse collection of bacteria ever found in people including some never before detected in humans, said scientists whose research appears in the journal Science Advances. The researchers were surprised to learn the Yanomami’s microbes harbored antibiotic-resistant genes including those conferring resistance to manmade antibiotics, considering they never had exposure to commercial antibiotics.

Every person hosts trillions of microbes, collectively called the microbiota, that live in and on virtually every part of the body. They contribute to functions essential to human health including immune system development, processing food and confronting invading pathogens.

“Our study suggests that the pre-modern human microbiota was composed of a greater diversity of bacteria and a greater diversity of bacterial functions when compared to populations impacted by modern practices, such as processed foods and antibiotics,” said pathology and immunology professor Gautam Dantas of Washington University in St. Louis.

A microbiota diversity decline may be linked to the increase in the past several decades of immunological and metabolic diseases such as asthma, allergies, diabetes and obesity, said Maria Dominguez-Bello, a professor of medicine at New York University’s Langone Medical Center.

The researchers analyzed microbial samples from 34 of the 54 Yanomami villagers. They were compared to a United States group, another Venezuelan Amazonian indigenous people, the Guahibo, and residents of rural Malawi in southern Africa.

Yanomami were found to have twice the number of microbe varieties of the U.S. subjects and 30 to 40 percent more diversity than the Malawians and Guahibo. Some of the bacteria found in the Yanomami but not in the others offer beneficial effects like protecting against kidney stones. The Yanomami are semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers in their remote mountainous region.

“It really is a unique opportunity to contact communities with this ancient lifestyle,” said Oscar Noya, a researcher with the Amazonic Center for Research and Control of Tropical Diseases in Venezuela who visited the villagers.

For Mother’s Day I found this interesting story:

David Good’s mother Yarma was a Yanomami tribe woman living in the Amazons who married an American Professor who did extensive studies on the tribe.

They moved from the Amazons to America. The interesting part is how the father Ken Good described the way his wife was culture shocked by Modern American civilization. She could not believe how impersonal people could be.

It really made me reflect and wonder how modern society forgets that we are all people who want to be treated kindly, fairly, without stress, struggle, and worry.

"First Ever Aerial Footage of Uncontacted Amazon Tribe"

By By Andrew Downie

The whereabouts of a remote Amazonian tribe who appeared in remarkable footage earlier this year aiming bows and arrows at a plane flying over their jungle homes was unknown Monday after government officials sent to protect them were forced to abandon their post and flee from armed drug traffickers.

Traffickers crossed the border from Peru and threatened officials from the National Indigenous Foundation (Funai), the government body charged with protecting Brazil’s isolated Indians, a foundation spokesman said, underlining new threats for isolated Indians as traffickers seek new territory and routes.

"This is extremely distressing news,” says Stephen Corry, director of Survival International, an indigenous rights group based in the UK. “There is no knowing how many tribal peoples the drugs trade has wiped out in the past, but all possible measures should be taken to stop it happening again."

The officials monitoring the tribe fled and the traffickers ransacked their jungle camp before Brazilian police reinforcements could reach the area.

Police have now retaken the base close to Brazil’s western border with Peru, and Funai officials are once again on the ground.

Two dozen officers tracked down and arrested one man, named as Joaquim Fadista. Mr. Fadista had already been detained in Brazil on trafficking charges and extradited to Peru. Officials believe Fadista was involved with a group trying to carve out new cross-border cocaine routes, or was working for loggers who covet the timber growing in the untouched forests where the group, called the Xinane, live. They are particularly worried at finding an arrow head in one of the trafficker’s abandoned backpacks.

"Arrows are like the identity card of uncontacted Indians,” says Carlos Travassos, the Funai official in charge of the isolated Indians division. “We think the Peruvians made the Indians flee…We are more concerned than ever. This could be one of the biggest blows in decades to the work of protecting isolated Indians."

Although Funai sent an official report on the events, it did not mention the whereabouts of the Xinane and it is not known if they are safe. Officials hope they fled the commotion and sought refuge deeper in the forest.

The Xinane came to worldwide prominence at the start of this year after they were filmed for a BBC nature program. The incredible scenes showed the clearly frightened Indians pointing bows and arrows at the plane flying overhead.

The footage turned them into unlikely – albeit unknown – celebrities and indigenous rights activists were today lamenting the developments and praying for their safety. "The world’s attention should be on these uncontacted Indians, just as it was at the beginning of this year when they were first captured on film," says Mr.Corry. Isolated Indian tribes like the Xinane are often kept on reservations for what officials say is their own good. Funai creates the fenced-off areas not to keep the Indians in, but to keep loggers, farmers, miners, and other threats out.

The policy is designed to protect the Indians and allow them to continue to live the same way they have lived for centuries.

Around 18 percent of the Amazon has been chopped down, and although deforestation rates have slowed in recent years, there are traces or reports of 39 uncontacted tribes still living in remote parts of the rainforest.

I read about this in the papers today and luckily for me my friend blogged about it and I'm happy he did, because I wanted to write about it but I didn't know what angle to take it from and I wanted you guys to know about it because it's really interesting So thank you LetsGoDeeper for doing my job for me.