THE BIOME BUZZ
BUGS AND WORMS AND OTHER GREAT STUFF
Category: Cardiovascular Disease
Insomnia? Your Gut Bacteria May Be to Blame
And now for a subject I hate even thinking about: sleep. Unlike most people, I dread going to sleep at night. I’m a terrible sleeper: I wake up over and over, sometimes falling back to sleep quickly, but all too often, not. I can’t…
Food Processing: Another Suspect in the ‘Globesity’ Epidemic?
Last night, I read an article that fit absolutely perfectly into my unintentional but prominent theme of the last couple of weeks: the relationship of the microbiome to weight issues…and to food: “Food Processing, Gut Microbiota and the Globesity Problem.”[i] Yup – we face…
Health and the Human Body: There’s No Such Thing as One Truth
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about obesity and the concept of evolutionary mismatch. As always, I posted it up on my Biome Buzz Facebook page. A few days later, in response to a comment that the whole problem is nothing more than…
Food Allergy, the Microbiome and Epigenetics
Last week I wrote about how nitric oxide, a communication molecule naturally produced by our bodies, is also produced by the bacteria of our gut. The molecule attaches to thousands of proteins in our bodies and can turn genes on and off, greatly affecting…
How Do the Microbiota Communicate with Their Host? Scientists Have Cracked the First Mechanism!
I don’t know if you remember but back in December, I wrote about research into how phages (viruses that kill bacteria) can understand the language of bacteria, allowing them to spy on their fellow gut inhabitants, thereby optimizing their own existence. Discoveries into inter-species…
Your Blood Type and Your Microbiome
Thanks to Natasha, one of my regular readers, I was introduced this week to a whole new (for me) biome topic. (Thank you again for that, Natasha!) Absolutely fascinating stuff. Like me, I’m sure most of you know that the best known way of…
Have I Ever Mentioned that Diet is Key? or…Introducing Roseburia intestinalis
I was introduced to a new probiotic species this morning that sound like it holds a lot of promise: Roseburia intestinalis. I came across an article[i] on Gut Microbiota for Health describing research into the beneficial effects of butyrate-producing bacteria on atherosclerotic plaques and…
Your Annual New Year’s Resolution Reminder: Eat a Healthy Diet
Since eating a healthy diet is the most important factor in maintaining a healthy and happy inner biome, I thought I’d catch you up on some of the latest papers out there. I spotted another “most popular medical stories of 2018” article on Medical…
Senescence, Aging…and the Microbiome: Part 2
As I promised last Thursday, I’ll finish talking about the article[i] on aging, the microbiome, and senescence today. A quick summary of my last post: the evidence currently available points to a depletion of the microbiota as we age (from diet (for example, older…
Senescence, Aging…and the Microbiome: Part 1
Yesterday evening, I read about a study[i] done by scientists at the University of Salford, in Manchester, UK, that fascinated me enough that it sent me into one of my I-can’t-stop-reading jags. First, a brief explanation: senescent cells are old cells that have lost…
