Moving to the city might mean gaining some unexpected roommates. New research finds that urban dwellings host more fungi and bacteria than their rural counterparts. This is despite the fact that city homes use more cleaning and antifungal products.
The finding, published yesterday in Nature Microbiology, could provide clues about why urban residents have higher rates of health conditions that might be linked to an individual’s microbial surroundings.
Over half of the world population lives in cities, and that percentage is expected to grow in the coming years. And while urban living generally comes with less infectious disease, there are some other health effects, like increased rates of asthma, allergies and obesity. Some of these conditions have been linked to an individual’s microbiome. Because personal microbiomes are at least partially derived from our environments, a group of experts from several universities — ranging from chemists to microbiologists to architects — ...
