Written by Editorial Team |Published : July 26, 2019 6:33 PM IST
Trillions of live microbes and more than a thousand species of bacteria thrive in your gut. They, in fact, outnumber the cells in your body. These have an important role to play in your overall well-being.
Now, engineers at Tufts University developed a 3D pill that can sample bacteria in the gut as it passes through the digestive tract. This will be the first non-invasive procedure to acquire samples from the gut. It will, in fact, provide the profile of microbiome populations in the entire digestive tract. The report was published in the journal Advanced Intelligent Systems.
This pill was developed through a 3D printer with microfluidic channels. The pill's surface has a pH-sensitive covering to save it from stomach acids. It has two chambers, one for acquiring bacteria and another calcium-filled chamber. There is also a tiny magnet that holds it at particular areas in the gut for more specific sampling guided by an external magnet. It is easy to use and safe.
Gut bacteria are essential for a human body. They aid in digestion and fortify the immune system. Moreover, they protect the body against illness. But any imbalance in microbiome can cause a range of health problems. It can cause constipation, bloating, indigestion and diarrhoea. This imbalance can aslo cause inflammation, cancer and certain infections.
Let us see how gut bacteria influence various health conditions.
Turns out, gut microbes could help better predict the risk of hospitalisation for patients with chronic liver damage that leads to scarring and liver failure. In medical terms, the condition is called cirrhosis. According to the researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University, the gut microbiome could be a highly accurate predictor of hospitalisations for patients with cirrhosis.
The study determined that analysis of microbial DNA and microbial RNA could be used alongside current clinical methods to more accurately predict 90-day hospitalisations. Microbial DNA analysis identifies live and dead bacterial species, while microbial RNA analysis identifies the most metabolically active microbial species. Cirrhosis is a leading cause of increased health expenditures due to hospitalisations and of mortality worldwide, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, part of the National Institutes of Health.
The journal JCI Insight published this study.
A new study published in the journal Circulation has revealed that beneficial gut microbes can produce a fatty acid called propionate from dietary fibre. This can protect against the harmful consequences of high blood pressure. To a large extent our well-being depends on what bacterial guests in our digestive tract consume as researchers have found that beneficial gut microbes can produce from dietary fibre a fatty acid called propionate which can protect against the harmful consequences of high blood pressure.
The substance calms the immune cells that drive up blood pressure. The results explain why a diet rich in fibre can prevent cardiovascular diseases. Nutrition organisations have recommended this for years. Whole-grain products and fruits, for example, contain cellulose and inulin fibers, from which gut bacteria produce the beneficial molecules like propionate.
For the study, the researchers fed propionate to mice with elevated blood pressure. The animals had less pronounced damage to the heart or abnormal enlargement of the organ, making them less susceptible to cardiac arrhythmia. Vascular damage, such as atherosclerosis, also decreased in mice, the study said.
A new study claims that gut bacteria have the ability to affect how cells respond to insulin and can thus contribute to Type-2 diabetes. Gut microbiota of people with treatment-naive Type-2 diabetes can be linked to a different metabolism of the amino acid histidine. This is mainly derived from the diet. This, in turn, leads to the formation of imidazole propionate. This impairs the cells' ability to respond to insulin. Reducing the amount of bacterial-produced imidazole propionate could be a new way of treating patients with such disease.
The journal Cell published this study. This study highlights the importance knowing the interaction between gut microbiota and diet to understand the role of metabolism in health and disease. The result also shows that gut bacteria from different individuals can lead to the production of completely different substances that may have very specific effects on the body.
Gut bacteria could hold clues to whether or not an individual will develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), says a study. This is a serious psychiatric disorder that can develop after a person experiences a life-threatening trauma. Researchers from Stellenbosch University, South Africa, say that individuals with PTSD had significantly lower levels of a combination of three bacteria Actinobacteria, Lentisphaerae and Verrucomicrobia compared to trauma-exposed control groups. The journal Psychosomatic Medicine published this study.
Individuals who experienced trauma during their childhood also had lower levels of two of these bacteria, Actinobacteria and Verrucomicrobia. One of the known functions of these bacteria is immune system regulation, and researchers have noted increased levels of inflammation and altered immune regulation in individuals with PTSD.
Microbes in the human gut play an important role in protecting against arsenic toxicity, new research suggests. Arsenic toxicity is a problem that affects an estimated 200 million people worldwide.
Long-term exposure to arsenic can increase the risk of cancer and cardiovascular diseases. A better understanding of how the microbiome protects against toxins like arsenic could benefit communities or villages with contaminated water sources through probiotic or other microbiome therapies, especially since it is not always practical or possible to replace a water source, said one of the researchers Seth Walk from Montana State University in the US.
The study, conducted in mice, described the essentiality of gut microbiome for full protection against acute arsenic toxicity. "We found that depending on which microbiome the mice got, they were protected (against arsenic toxicity) to varying degrees," Walk said. Those results, published in the journal Nature Communications, suggest that the microbiome of some people may be more protective than others, Walk said.
The findings may answer the question of why some people who drink from a shared water source tainted with arsenic develop disease later in life while others do not.
People nowadays use artificial sweeteners and not sugar. A study published in the journal Nature says that artificial sweeteners lead to changes in the microbiota. It surged the blood sugar levels of the participants.
The process of preparing a fermented food include the involvement of bacteria or yeast that converts the sugar in foods to organic acids or alcohol. These foods contain lactobacilli, a type of bacteria that can work wonders for our gut health. The common fermented food that you can include in your dietary is yogurt.
High-fibre foods are difficult to digest. And, certain bacteria in your gut can easily break down these foods. The prominent source of high-fibre food is whole grain.
Green tea is rich in polyphenol content. This is a plant compound that curbs your blood pressure, inflammation and cholesterol levels.
Plant-based diet are good for your overall well-being. You can also improve your gut health by regularly eating plant-based foods. A study published in the journal Environmental Microbiology Reports, says that a vegetarian diet helped in reducing disease-causing bacteria in those who were overweight.
With inputs from Agencies.
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