THE BIOME BUZZ
BUGS AND WORMS AND OTHER GREAT STUFF
Category: Human Biome
Antibiotics in Early Childhood: The Road to Asthma and Allergy
When my son was just 36 hours old, he was re-hospitalized with a fever and put onto 5 days of IV antibiotics. (You can read more about his history here.) He was given more oral antibiotics right before his first birthday. Once I learned…
More on Helminths and the Prevention of Cancer
Last October, I wrote about a study that looked at the effects on cancer of the immune modulation afforded by helminths (intestinal worms), which are the main component of the mammalian macrobiome. That paper provided a very positive initial review of the mechanisms by…
Bloated? A Surprising Culprit May Be to Blame
This morning, I spotted an interesting little piece on Medical Daily entitled, “Bloated? High-Fiber Foods Are Not to Blame; This Ingredient Is.”[i] Curious to see what they were suggesting as a possible culprit (after all, bloating is the second most common complaint I hear…
The Human Biome and What We Don’t know
My old mentor, a well known functional medicine physician, used to always conclude his talks with a quote by Vaclav Havel: “Keep the company of those who seek the truth – run from those who have found it.” I think about that concept every…
Constipation, Dysbiosis, Autism and a Prebiotic: A New Clinical Trial
The single most common gastrointestinal (GI) complaint I hear as a nutritionist, by a long way, is constipation…and the single best piece of advice I give my clients is “drink more water.” It never ceases to amaze me how dehydrated most people are. Invariably,…
Fibromyalgia: Yet Another Biome Related Illness
I’ve written before about recent findings that alterations in the gut bacteria are associated with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), which is closely related to fibromyalgia. For those of you unfamiliar, the symptoms of fibromyalgia include wide spread body pain, fatigue, impaired sleep, potentially cognitive…
Helminth Therapy: A Call to Action
An interesting opinion piece by Dr. William Parker, of Duke University, and colleagues at a couple of Czech Universities, just appeared in Trends in Parasitology.[i] To summarize, the paper makes two key points: A. These scientists hold the belief that the interaction between human…
Probiotics, Depression and Anxiety: A New Meta-analysis
One of the more common questions I get asked is “what probiotics are good for my condition?” Believe me, it does not make me happy to have to say, over and over again, “If only we knew.” I am always glad, therefore, to read…
Stressed? Spend Time Outdoors to Get Your Mycobacterium vaccae
For the last couple of years, I’ve followed the research of a team out of the University of Colorado, who have been looking into treating stress and anxiety by using microbiotic organisms, and have even been exploring the idea of creating a vaccine to…
Eat Crickets! Delicious, Nutritious and Great for your Biome, Shows a Clinical Study
A couple of months ago, a friend sent me an article I finally had a chance to read, which describes a double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover study that looked at the effects of eating crickets on health and the gut biome.[i] Now don’t sit there rolling…
