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Food: a new form of personalised (gut microbiome) medicine for chronic diseases?

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Food: a new form of personalised (gut microbiome) medicine for chronic diseases?
 

Full text: http://sci-hub.bz/10.1177/0141076816658786


Filling in the knowledge gaps between what we eat and the diseases we develop may lie in our guts, literally. The human large intestine houses the largest reservoir of microorganisms in or on the human body. With a 100-fold greater gene count than humans, the gut microbiome has huge potential to place a large metabolic burden (or advantage) on its host. The number of diverse gut microbial species is diminished in nearly all modern chronic conditions studied. The 'Western diet', rich in animal protein, fats and artificial additives, and lacking in fibre, beneficial microbes, plant phytochemicals, vitamins and minerals, is thought to drive these conditions by encouraging gut dysbiosis. Evidence from recent dietary intervention studies suggest adopting a plant-based, minimally processed high-fibre diet may rapidly reverse the effects of meat-based diets on the gut microbiome. However, recent work has shown that individual diet responses may be complicated by host genetics and the wide variation in the gut microbiome. Now that we measure genes and microbes more accurately, we are embarking on an exciting era of using both food and microbes as potential therapies.

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Gut Instincts: microbiota as a key regulator of brain development, ageing and neurodegeneration.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.sci-hub.bz/doi/10.1113/JP273106/abstract

There is a growing realisation that the gut-brain axis and its regulation by the microbiota may play a key role in the biological and physiological basis of neurodevelopmental, age-related and neurodegenerative disorders. The routes of communication between the microbiota and brain are being unravelled and include the vagus nerve, gut hormone signalling, the immune system, tryptophan metabolism or by way of microbial metabolites such as short chain fatty acids. The importance of early life gut microbiota in shaping future health outcomes is also emerging. Disturbances of this composition by way of antibiotic exposure, lack of breastfeeding, infection, stress and the environmental influences coupled with the influence of host genetics can result in long-term effects on physiology and behaviour, at least in animal models. It is also worth noting that mode of delivery at birth influences microbiota composition with those born by caesarean section having a distinctly different microbiota in early life to those born per vaginum. At the other extreme of life, aging is associated with a narrowing in microbial diversity and healthy ageing correlates with a diverse microbiome. Recently, the gut microbiota has been implicated in a variety of conditions including depression, autism, schizophrenia and Parkinson's disease. There is still considerable debate as to whether or not the gut microbiota changes are core to the pathophysiology of such conditions or are merely epiphenomenal. It is plausible that such neuropsychiatric disorders might be treated in the future by targeting the microbiota either by microbiota transplantation, antibiotics or psychobiotics. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

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It's important work for sure, when I first read about the human microbiome project (which was in some ways an offshoot from the human genome project) a few years ago I started to realise just how much I don't know. Some sources suggest that less than 10% of the cells on and in a human are actually found to be human cells, the rest are bacteria, protozoa, viruses and the like. In some ways it's like a we a large scale transport mechanism for micro flora.

 

Our gut biome is critical to all our other body functions. Personally the high fibre low animal protein approach has failed for me, whenever I gravitate back to that sort of diet I run into problems. For most people it would probably be well suited but it causes problems for me & that's most likely because of my fucked up gut biome.

 

The anti biotics that are ubiquitous these days are almost certainly causing problems for many people. They can be a double edged sword, no-one could doubt that they can be life saving in many cases but they can also leave the recipient in a state where their gut biome is disturbed which can cause a cascade of seemingly unrelated problems.  

 

I've been on a bit of mission to try restore my gut biome for the last few months. I'm not too keen on the idea of a feacal transplant, so I've been focusing on lacto fermented vegetables like pickled onions, kimchi and beet kvass to try and re-establish a healthy gut biome. Kefir took me so far but it's starting to seem like soil borne bacteria could be more important.

 

The more we know the more we realise how much we don't know.

 

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triphala is very good for the gut, anything like chrone's it can pretty much take care of. 

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