THE BIOME BUZZ
BUGS AND WORMS AND OTHER GREAT STUFF
Month: February 2018
Personalized Nutrition: The Future Has Arrived
I found such an interesting article[i] yesterday in the Wall Street Journal about new companies that offer microbiome testing in order to help optimize the diet. I’ve never had any doubt that this was the wave of the future (and in fact have posted…
Depression and Probiotics…Some of the Latest News
There were some amazing statistics in an article I spotted today on the website, Psychiatry Advisor[i]. Did you know that about 1/3 of patients with depression do not respond to medications? I had no idea the number was that high. SSRIs (medicines like Prozac…
Lactobacillus and Memory
An interesting little article[i] appeared in GeekWire this week about ongoing research looking at how probiotics affect memory. Previous research already suggests that memory can be improved by supplementing with beneficial bacteria. Lactobacillus has been shown to improve cognition in Alzheimer’s as well. The…
Inflammatory Bowel Disease and Diet – Irrevocably Linked
This morning, I got all excited when I spotted the headline in IBD News Today, “Natural Diet is Key to Preventing, Reversing Crohn’s in Children, Israeli Expert Says.”[i] Wow! I hoped that this article would be about the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, or at least…
What Do We Really Know About Treating SIBO
This morning I got to thinking about some of my favorite papers of the past, and decided to pick one to write about today. In the spring of 2010, around the same time I saw Dr. Jeremy Nicholson present his findings – that the…
Immune Tolerance and Pathobionts: Good Guys/Bad Guys
Did you ever wonder how our bodies are able to differentiate between our commensal bacteria and pathogenic ones? Many times in this blog, I’ve written about this “immune tolerance.” Researchers at NYU are trying to figure this out and are partly there.[i] Of course,…
New Information on the Microbiome and Neurodegenerative Diseases
Yet more research[i] has just been published showing the bacterial microbiome’s connection to neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. A variety of bacteria (including ones found in the mouth) produce amyloid proteins (known as bacterial amyloids) similar to the ones produced naturally by our…
You Read It Hear First: Protozoa the Next Generation Probiotic
I read a paper yesterday that has me beside myself with excitement. (I really do need to get out more.) “Gut Protozoa: Friends or Foes of the Human Gut Microbiota?”[i] The authors argue “…that protozoa, like helminths, represent an important factor to take into…
