At Vivante, we’re the digestive health experts. We live for this stuff. Here’s a short summary of another academic article our gut health nerds found interesting…
At a cellular level you’re a lot busier than you think. In the dark, quiet spaces of your digestive system lies an entirely different world—a world ruled by microbes, trillions of tiny organisms that include fungi, bacteria, and viruses. Taken together, this group of organisms is dubbed the human microbiota.
Research Breakthroughs
Until fairly recently, it’s been difficult to study the human mircobiota in detail and figure out exactly what they’re up to. But as the paper below suggests, with advances in genetics and DNA sequencing, we’re heading into the new era of “omics” where researchers can undertake large-scale microbe analyses that were unthinkable just a few years ago. This newfound knowledge is having all kinds of impacts in the areas of cancer research, therapeutics, and digestive disorders like Crohn’s and colitis, two inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) with no known cure.
The Gut Microbiome
The microbes found within our guts are particularly important. They perform a number of crucial functions for our bodies, including priming the immune system, providing nutrients for our cells, and preventing harmful bacteria from setting up shop and taking over. We now know that the microbes in a healthy gut are numerous and diverse and have the ability to change their own DNA. This is very exciting!
New research also reveals that medications and nutritional changes targeted at the body also heavily impact the gut microbiome. Before now, this aspect has largely been ignored in medicine. Knowing this, it’s quite possible that microbiome studies will be used to drive new drug development, personalize medications, and even provide a blueprint for truly personalized medical care, treating every patient as a unique individual.
The Takeaway
We’re just at the beginning of this discovery phase, and there’s plenty more to find out. An entirely new arena of IBD treatments might be on the horizon. The future of microbiome therapeutics looks very bright.
About Vivante Health
Vivante Health is an innovative digital healthcare company reinventing the way chronic conditions are managed, gut first. Vivante’s virtual GI care delivers the right care at the right time by pairing data-driven technology with a coordinated team of experienced physicians, registered dietitians and health coaches. For more information, visit the company website or email [email protected].
Original article: Review article: the gut microbiome in inflammatory bowel disease-avenues for microbial management. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29034981