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 about it before) but didn’t realize that the future is already … Read more
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 and Zoloft) have a very high side effect profile. Compliance with … Read more
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 article describes a recently published study on mice wherein mice were … Read more
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 something close to it (bearing in mind the recent work by … Read more
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 urine of children on the autism spectrum contains metabolites different from … Read more
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, what makes this even more complicated is that some bacteria are … Read more
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 neurons. (Remember, as I’ve described in a previous post, that amyloid … Read more
Helminths are not the only macrobiotic organism that resides in the human ecosystem. Today, we’re talking protozoa. 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 … Read more