Biome

Revolutionary research illuminates that a new frontier of personalized medicine lies in the virome. Rather than harbingers of disease, viruses are intrinsic to immune modulation and to disease susceptibility.

Background and Aim Acid suppressive agents including proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) are used as first-line treatment for various acid-related gastrointestinal disorders. Although known to profoundly ...

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Background Urbanization is associated with an increased risk for a number of diseases, including obesity, diabetes, and cancer, which all also show associations with the microbiome. While microbial community composition has been shown to vary across continents and in traditional versus Westernized societies, few studies have examined urban-rural differences in neighboring communities within a single country undergoing rapid urbanization. In this study, we compared the gut microbiome, plasma metabolome, dietary habits, and health biomarkers of rural and urban people from a single Chinese province. Results We identified significant differences in the microbiota and microbiota-related plasma metabolites in rural versus recently urban subjects from the Hunan province of China. Microbes with higher relative abundance in Chinese urban samples have been associated with disease in other studies and were substantially more prevalent in the Human Microbiome Project cohort of American subjects. Furthermore, using whole metagenome sequencing, we found that urbanization was associated with a loss of microbial diversity and changes in the relative abundances of Viruses, Archaea, and Bacteria. Gene diversity, however, increased with urbanization, along with the proportion of reads associated with antibiotic resistance and virulence, which were strongly correlated with the presence of Escherichia and Shigella. Conclusions Our data suggest that urbanization has produced convergent evolution of the gut microbial composition in American and urban Chinese populations, resulting in similar compositional patterns of abundant microbes through similar lifestyles on different continents, including a loss of potentially beneficial bacteria and an increase in potentially harmful genes via increased relative abundance of Escherichia and Shigella.

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Fiber isn’t the only thing our good gut bacteria can eat; starch can also act as a prebiotic. Subscribe to NutritionFacts.org’s free newsletter to receive our B12 infographic that covers the latest research takeaways and Dr. Greger’s updated recommendations: https://nutritionfacts.org/subscribe/ This is a follow-up to my video Is the Fiber Theory Wrong?(http://nutritionfacts.org/video/is-the-fiber-theory-wrong) What is this butyrate stuff of which I speak? See: • Bowel Wars: Hydrogen Sulfide vs. Butyrate (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/bowel-wars-hydrogen-sulfide-vs-butyrate/) • Prebiotics: Tending Our Inner Garden (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/prebiotics-tending-our-inner-garden) • Treating Ulcerative Colitis with Diet (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/treating-ulcerative-colitis-with-diet) For videos on optimizing your gut flora, see: • Microbiome: The Inside Story (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/microbiome-the-inside-story) • What’s Your Gut Microbiome Enterotype?http://nutritionfacts.org/video/whats-your-gut-microbiome-enterotype • How to Change Your Enterotype (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/how-to-change-your-enterotype/) More on preventing colon cancer in: • Starving Cancer with Methionine Restriction (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/starving-cancer-with-methionine-restriction/) • Stool pH and Colon Cancer (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/stool-ph-and-colon-cancer/) • Solving a Colon Cancer Mystery (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/solving-a-colon-cancer-mystery/) If you’re eating healthy do you need a colonoscopy? Find out in Should We All Get Colonoscopies Starting at Age 50? (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/should-we-all-get-colonoscopies-starting-at-age-50). When regular starches are cooked and then cooled, some of the starch recrystallizes into resistant starch. For this reason, pasta salad can be healthier than hot pasta and potato salad healthier than a baked potato. Find out more in my next video Getting Starch to Take the Path of Most Resistance (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/Getting-starch-to-take-the-path-of-most-resistance). Have a question about this video? Leave it in the comment section at http://nutritionfacts.org/video/resistant-starch-and-colon-cancer/ and someone on the NutritionFacts.org team will try to answer it. Want to get a list of links to all the scientific sources used in this video? Click on Sources Cited at http://nutritionfacts.org/video/resistant-starch-and-colon-cancer/. You’ll also find a transcript of the video, my blog and speaking tour schedule, and an easy way to search (by translated language even) through our videos spanning more than 2,000 health topics. If you’d rather watch these videos on YouTube, subscribe to my YouTube Channel here: https://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=nutritionfactsorg Thanks for watching. I hope you’ll join in the evidence-based nutrition revolution! -Michael Greger, MD FACLM Image Credit: Ed Uthman via flickr. https://NutritionFacts.org • Subscribe: https://nutritionfacts.org/subscribe • Donate: https://nutritionfacts.org/donate • Podcast : https://nutritionfacts.org/audio • Facebook: www.facebook.com/NutritionFacts.org • Twitter: www.twitter.com/nutrition_facts • Instagram: www.instagram.com/nutrition_facts_org • Books (including the NEW How Not to Diet Cookbook): https://nutritionfacts.org/books • Shop: https://drgreger.org #coloncancer #hownottodie #drgreger

(2016). Resistant starch reduces colonic and urinary p-cresol in rats fed a tyrosine-supplemented diet, whereas konjac mannan does not. Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Biochemistry: Vol. 80, No. 10, pp. 1995-2000.

Background Mortality from chronic liver disease is rising exponentially. The liver is intimately linked to the gut via the portal vein, and exposure to gut microbiota and their metabolites transloca...

The human intestinal microbiome is thought to influence tumor development and progression in the gastrointestinal tract by various mechanisms. Therefore, by better understanding the microbiome in eso...

Reported values in the literature on the number of cells in the body differ by orders of magnitude and are very seldom supported by any measurements or calculations. Here, we integrate the most up-to-date information on the number of human and bacterial ...

The incidence of diabetes mellitus is rapidly increasing throughout the world. Although the exact cause of the disease is not fully clear, perhaps, genetics, ethnic origin, obesity, age, and lifestyle are considered as few of many contributory factors for the disease pathogenesis. In recent years, the disease progression is particularly linked with functional and taxonomic alterations in the gastrointestinal tract microbiome. A change in microbial diversity, referred as microbial dysbiosis, alters the gut fermentation profile and intestinal wall integrity and causes metabolic endotoxemia, low-grade inflammation, autoimmunity, and other affiliated metabolic disorders. This article aims to summarize the role of the gut microbiome in the pathogenesis of diabetes. Additionally, we summarize gut microbial dysbiosis in preclinical and clinical diabetes cases reported in literature in the recent years.

Chinese Medical Journal, a publication of Chinese Medical Association, is a peer-reviewed online journal with semi-monthly print on demand compilation of issues published. The journal's full text is available online at http://www.cmj.org. The journal allows free access (Open Access) to its contents and permits authors to self-archive final accepted version of the articles on any OAI-compliant institutional / subject-based repository.

Could Monsanto's glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup be leading to the overgrowth of deadly bacteria in animals and humans consuming genetically-modified food contaminated with it?

Scientists show how a specific strain of microbes helps control glucose homeostasis in mice. In the future, this could mean more targeted and powerful probiotics in humans.

The report describes two individuals who suffered from significant hair loss related to alopecia who were treated for a gastrointestinal disorder, C. Diff.

A researcher ends the debate among physicians regarding sepsis management.

UCLA researchers gained insight into the connections among childhood trauma, brain development and the composition of the gut microbiome.

Sunlight, through a mechanism separate than vitamin D production, energizes T cells that play a central role in human immunity, researchers have found. The findings suggest how the skin, the body’s largest organ, stays alert to the many microbes that can nest there.

Researchers have discovered that the devastating bacterial superbug Clostridioides difficile hijacks the human wound healing system in order to cause serious and persistent disease, opening up the development of new therapies to treat the disease.

AIM: Long-term dietary intake of non-caloric fiber, such as Aloe vera gel influences the structural and activity of micro-organisms in the human gut. The present investigation was executed with an innovative concept: symbiotic effect of probiotics that are used commercially as lactic acid bacteria i.e. Lactobacillus fermentum and Aloe vera juice as prebiotics for a prospective prophylaxis. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Fermentation of L. fermentum with Aloe vera juice certified by International Aloe Science Council was carried out and the quantification of short chain fatty acids (SCFAs) from the fermentation broth in large scale was determined by gas-chromatography-mass-spectrometry selective detection in the selective ion monitoring mode. RESULTS: The growth of L. fermentum and L. helveticus with Aloe vera juice (AVJ) individually on MRS broth was continued to keep at pH 3.5 and 3.6, while pH of the negative controls changed to 4.3 and 4.0, respectively, during 24 hr incubation. The growth rate and the viability of L. helveticus incubated with different concentrations (5-25%) of Aloe vera juice were strongly reduced. However, the growth rate of L. fermentum was enhanced in a concentration dependent manner with emphasis on the use of 15% AVJ that resulted in two times more growth than that of the negative control. Continuation of L. fermentum growth at pH 3.6 in combination with AVJ during incubation for 24 hr suggests the durability of prebiotic potential by AVJ in in vitro fermentation. Acetic, propionic and lactic acid as SCFAs in the ether extract were identified from the fermentation culture medium. CONCLUSION: The prebiotic activity of AVJ may be assessed by the participation of SCFAs during 24 hrs-incubation with L. fermentum. An innovative concept of symbiotics: a combination of AVJ and L. fermentum, is a perspective prophylaxis on future intestinal health claims. Due to tolerance to acid, L. fermentum may pass through the gastric barrier and colonize the intestine after oral administration.

It turns out that the brain, which has historically thought to be a sterile environment, may actually be host to its own microbiome; not unlike the environment of the gut!

Between the hard and fast dichotomies of cooked and raw, dead and alive, is this beautiful thing called fermented...

Emerging evidence points toward an important role of the gut-brain axis in neuropsychiatric diseases, suggesting that gut bacteria may be integral contributors to development and function of the nervous system and to the balance between mental health and disease.

Exposure to life stressors exacerbates gastrointestinal conditions, including inflammatory bowel diseases and irritable bowel syndrome, however the me…

Complex communities of microbes live on and in plants, humans and other animals. These communities are collectively referred to as the microbiota or microbiome. Plants and animals evolved to co-exist...

Recent research studies have shown that the intestinal flora are related to the occurrence and progress of breast cancer. This study investigates the effect of fucoidan on intestinal flora and intestinal barrier function in rats with 7,12-dimethylbenz[a]anthracene (DMBA)-induced breast cancers. Sixty female

“It’s the end of the road for antibiotics unless we act urgently,” - Dr. Tom Friedman