Our personal collection of microbes is vital for gut health - but new research shows that large-scale analysis of our ‘microbiomes’ can show if a population is fat or lean. The answer is in sewage.
The terms probiotics and prebiotics are appearing on more items in supermarket aisles all the time. Both words, their placement and the products they adorn, imply they’re good for you, that more of these…
We’ve long known that that the gut is responsible for digesting food and expelling the waste. More recently, we realised the gut has many more important functions and acts a type of mini-brain, affecting…
One of medicine’s greatest innovations in the 20th century was the development of antibiotics. It transformed our ability to combat disease. But medicine in the 21st century is rethinking its relationship…
Reema Rattan, The Conversation and Alexandra Miller, The Conversation
Changing the bacteria in the gut could treat and prevent life-threatening allergies, according to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) journal today. “These…
Many microscopic bugs and bacteria live on our skin and within our various nooks and crannies. Almost anywhere on (or even within) the human body can be home to these enterprising bugs. Bugs affect us…
Striking new evidence indicates that the gut microbiome, the ecological community of microorganisms that share our body, has a huge effect on brain function – much larger than we thought. It has long been…
Probiotics are something of a new dietary craze. Foods contain healthy “probiotic” bacteria, and these microbes can promote good gastrointestinal (GI) health. But what about your brain? Apparently, bacteria…
Here’s an interesting stat to bring up at the dinner table: for each human cell in your body, you have roughly ten non-human cells living in your gut. In other words, there are around 100 trillion microorganisms…
Antibiotics joined our growing arsenal of weapons in the fight against disease over seventy years ago. Their target – the bacterial infections that putrefied our wounds, filled our lungs with pneumonia…
The emerging field of personalised medicine seeks to tailor therapies to suit an individual’s metabolism or genetic make-up. This strategy has worked well with medication for specific forms of breast cancer…
ABC’s Four Corners recently aired a controversial documentary (The Autism Enigma) on how gut bacteria might affect autism. Here we review some of the science surrounding what it suggested caused autism…
Calls to “protect the environment” ring out across issues as diverse as climate change, biodiversity loss, deforestation, water conservation and chemical contamination. I believe it is time to abandon…
A study recently published in the British Medical Journal (project Viva) has found that children born by caesarean section have a higher rate of obesity at age three than children born naturally. At first…
We sometimes forget that antibiotics kill beneficial microorganisms as well as those that threaten our health. In fact, the damage they wreak on “good” germs could be responsible for the growth of certain…