I vaguely remember reading recently that there were more cells of bacteria and fungi in a human body than there were human cells. A couple Google searches didn’t seem to turn up anything related to this. Does anyone know if this is true?
I’m dubious. Save for the gut (from lips to anus), respiratory tree and skin, & parts of the female reproductive system, the body is pretty free of bacterial and fungi.
Of course the bowel is chock-full of bacteria. In fact, stool is about half bacteria by volume. And bacterial cells are from 10 to 100 times or more smaller than various human cells.
My conclusion: I don’t know. Maybe. 
Here’s a nice link that shows the relative size of various human cells, bacteria, and viruses.
Every time you say this, Qadgop, I become ever-so-slightly closer to hooking up with the crazy leftist crowd and cleaning the whole gut out with a nice high colonic.
:: shudders ::
“Leftist”? I meant “alternative medicine”. I was thinking about something I’d just read in the Pit. And apparently I’m too stupid to type properly.
From here
Cool, thanks for all the info and links, folks! 
So it’s safe to say there’s more cells of bacteria associated with the body; but many parts of the body are almost completely free of bacteria and the biomass of bacteria is probably insignificant because each bacterial cell is so small?
Big enough that I’m giving myself a Lysol enema this evening.
Oh, don’t get squeemish about a few million bacteria.
I have minions! I’m an ecosystem!
Feels like I’m coming up in the world.
I know people are kidding, but you really do want those bacteria in your colon. They do lots of good things, from making vitamin B[sub]12[/sub] to digesting lactose.
And nothing special is needed to clean them out, no matter what any quack website or infomercial may say. If you’ve ever had a colonoscopy you will have used ordinary OTC products to clean out your insides so completely that the camera has a perfectly clear view of their surfaces.
And then as soon as you eat any food you’ll start recolonizing the bacteria all over again.
It’s known that some bacteria are more beneficial than others, hence the claims made for yogurt, but overall you want to smile at those little beasties each time you say goodbye to them.
Typing doesn’t take brains, just coordination. From what posts I’ve seen you’re smart enough! The best of it is that you came back and corrected yourself. I get really annoyed at those people around here who label anything they don’t like ‘leftist’. But you’ve made me feel better. Thanks!
[/hijack]
Well, if I labeled everything I didn’t like “leftist”, it would be rather ironic, given that I’m a raving liberal myself.
Anyway, Exapno I know that I want my colon to be a lush ecosystem filled with bacteria. That doesn’t mean I want to know about it . . .
Well, I suppose that depends on what you mean by insignificant. As Mr. Mapcase pointed out, the bacteria are important for digestion. So they are significant in functional terms.
And I would guess the total bacterial biomass is above 1% of the human’s, so that’s significant by some points of view.