An international study led by the Cibio Department of the University of Trento revealed that some members of the human microbiomes are extensively transmitted among individuals through social interaction. This way, the people we are in close contact with constitute another crucial source of the microbes that contribute to health, beside mother-to-child transmission at birth. The new findings may help understand how the microbial species associated with the risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer and other diseases are acquired. The study has been published in Nature