We’re only 10% human. According to…who?

Reading an interesting post at Genomes Unzipped, “Human genetics is microbial genomics“, which states:

Only 10% of cells on your “human” body are human anyway, the rest are microbial.

Have you read a sentence like that before? So have I. So has a reader who left a comment:

I was wondering if you have a source for “Only 10% of cells on your “human” body are human anyway, the rest are microbial”

It’s a good question. Everyone quotes this figure, almost no-one provides a reference. Let’s go in search of one.