Yesterday I devoted several hours to reading a fascinating article on the connection between stress and the microbiome.[i] The conclusion: the lack of exposure to our “old friends” (those commensal organisms with which humans co-evolved) has caused immune dysregulation, leading to a greater susceptibility to the adverse effects of stress…and that stress, in turn, has … More Stress and Our Missing Old Friends
In my last post, I talked about how microbiome depletion results from immigrating to the United States (and subsequent dietary changes), which leads to obesity and metabolic diseases. I promised to tell you more about immigrant studies on biome depletion so today I am addressing a paper from 2 years ago in which researchers describe … More Helminths and Allergies: Another Look at an Immigrant Population
Last week, a really interesting new study[i] was published in the journal, Cell, detailing how immigrating to the USA negatively impacts the gut bacteria. Researchers looked at people from Southeast Asia and found that there was a significant reduction in the diversity of gut microbes with each subsequent generation, culminating with their microbiota resembling those of … More The Negative (Biome) Side of Moving to the USA
I know you were all missing your Tuesday post from me. 🙂 I was on my way home from Florida, where we saw my son’s autism doctor. So with autism on my mind, I thought I’d share a little article[i] I found today that ties together several topics I’ve covered in the last month or … More Interesting Bits and Pieces About Autism, Akkermansia and More Things You Can Do Now
If you remember, my last post was a quick update on what we currently know about the microbiome-depression link, and I mention leaky gut with a promise to write more about it this week. Toward that end, on Friday evening, I read an article from the journal Microorganisms entitled, “Leaky Gut, Leaky Brain?,”[i] and was … More Leaky Gut and Leaky Brains…and Disease
A few days ago, the website Psychiatry Advisor, had a very nice review article[i] of our current understanding of probiotics’ effects on depression. I’ve written about this before, obviously, but want to always keep you updated on all the latest. Besides, this is also a good lead in for my next post, which I am … More Depression and the Microbiome: A Brief Update
I have read the vast majority of papers ever written on the subject of therapeutic helminths, and cannot, for the life of me, remember reading one that specifically addresses their potential anti-cancer effects. I knew that helminths’ inflammation-modulating effect should theoretically be highly beneficial in terms of lowering cancer risk, but today, for the first … More The Potential Anti-Cancer Power of “Parasites”
After my last blog post about microbiome changes in Alzheimer’s, including a depletion of the bacteria, Akkermansia, I became curious. It is not as yet included in any commercial probiotic so I got to wondering if there were any known ways of boosting levels. I found an article[i] from just last year, a commentary actually, … More Boosting Levels of Akkermansia to Improve Glucose Metabolism
Yesterday, I read a study[i] done on 55 people which showed substantial and distinct alterations of the gut bacteria in people with Alzheimer’s disease versus healthy controls. More than that: the blood of those affected showed higher levels of bacterial toxins, meaning that their gut lining is inflamed and leaky, these toxins are able to … More Bacterial Alterations in Alzheimer’s Disease: A Case of the Missing Akkermansia?
My regular readers know that I often quote my original guru, the famous functional medicine doctor, Sidney Baker. Another of his truisms: when looking at a patient, consider whether or not the patient has too much of something, or too little of something. Yes, it’s a very simple concept – and I can’t tell you … More Probiotics as Antibiotics? What a Great Idea!