It’s an ugly fact of life that getting old means getting infections. Old people get attacked more by pathogens, and the damage that these germs cause can speed up the aging process, leading to even more infections. The standard explanation for this vulnerability is that the immune system falters in old age, opening an opportunity for pathogens to invade. But in the journal Biology Direct, Viktor Muller of Eotvos Unversity and his colleagues propose that something else is also going on in the aging body. Maybe the microbiome senses that its host is in bad shape and rises up in rebellion. The scientists call their idea “the Microbiome Mutiny Hypothesis.”

It may seem like a strange notion, but several lines of evidence suggest it’s worth considering. First