Certain factors can disrupt the gut microbiota. These include our diet, alcohol consumption, antibiotics and inflammatory bowel disease.
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Research has examined how ultraprocessed foods can contribute to diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer and mood disorders. A healthier diet is one way to use food as medicine.
You can change your gut microbiome composition by eating different foods.
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Cancer cells are ‘cheaters’ that do not cooperate with the rest of the body. Certain microbes in your diet can either protect against or promote tumor formation by influencing cell cooperation.
Taichi A. Suzuki, Max Planck Institute for Biology and Ruth Ley, Max Planck Institute for Biology
As early modern humans spread across the globe, their gut microbes genetically changed with them. Understanding the origins of gut microbes could improve understanding of their role in human health.
Science shows that humans are happier and healthier around other animal and plant species.
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The types of microbes residing in your gut can affect your mental and physical health. Home microbiome tests promise to help consumers improve the composition of their gut microbes.
Stem cell transplants involve completely eliminating and then replacing the immune system of a patient, often by transplanting the bone marrow.
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Patients with blood cancer undergoing stem cell transplantation have a high risk of complications. The bacteria in their gut, however, can help their immune system recover and fight infections.
Two Australians with bipolar have been successfully treated with poo transplants, allowing them to come off, or reduce, their medications. Here’s where the science is up to.
Many school lunchbox products are now heavily marketed as promoting gut health. The limited regulation of such claims leaves it to parents and carers to assess whether they really stack up.
When not hibernating, ground squirrels need to feast to store energy.
Robert Streiffer
Months not eating or moving don’t result in muscle wasting and loss of function for animals that hibernate. New research found gut microbes help their hosts hold onto and use nitrogen to build proteins.