I don\'t know much about medicine, and I know even less about microbiology, but

Question

I don't know much about medicine, and I know even less about microbiology, but I understand that there are organisms in the lower gastrointestinal tract (and in feces) of a human, like Escherichia coli, that can cause dangerous disease if swallowed (or injected intravenously) by a human. So how did they get to the lower gastrointestinal tract in the first place? I assume either (or some combination of)

Does anyone know which of these is true? Or is it something else? (Perhaps they enter the gastrointestinal tract from below and not via swallowing?)

Explanation / Answer

E. coli is mostly harmless; only a few strains are harmful.

I don't believe the route by which gut biota is established has been entirely established for any species but, for example, koala feed their faeces to their offspring to help them establish biota capable of digesting eucalyptus. It seems that a small proportion of ingested bacteria somehow survive passage through the stomach to the gut and then begin multiplying and colonising the intestines.

It's also important to realise that just because an organism is sometimes harmful doesn't mean it always is. There are many microorganisms that are pretty much ubiquitously found on or in your body which are capable of causing disease but only do so very rarely; usually when the body's defences have already been compromised (e.g. Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Candida albicans aka thrush, and so on).

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