To improve the treatment of children with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), investigators have developed a sophisticated way to analyze the microbial and metabolic contents of the gut. A report in The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics, published by Elsevier, describes how a new battery of tests enables researchers to distinguish patients with IBS from healthy children […]
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According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about one in every 59 children in the U.S. is diagnosed with autism, up from one in every 150 in 2000. They report that “about half a million people on the autism spectrum will become adults over the next decade, a swelling tide for which the […]
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Why do blood vessels naturally stiffen and degrade as we age, boosting cardiovascular disease risk? New CU Boulder research has identified a surprising new culprit—and it lives in your gut. “This is the first study to show that changes in the gut microbiome with aging have an adverse impact on vascular health,” said lead author Vienna Brunt, […]
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Tumult in the bacterial community that occupies your gut—known as your microbiome—doesn’t just cause indigestion. For people recovering from a stroke, it may influence how they get better. A recent study by Allison Brichacek and Candice Brown, researchers in the West Virginia University School of Medicine, suggests that stroke patients’ microbiomes—and even the structure of […]
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The bacterium?Clostridium difficile, which is responsible for the majority of antibiotic-associated diarrhea outbreaks worldwide, produces a unique compound called p-cresol to gain a competitive advantage over natural protective gut bacteria. The findings were reported by Lisa Dawson and Team at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and colleagues on September 11 in the […]
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Millions of neurons in the gastrointestinal tract coordinate their activity to generate the muscle contractions that propel waste through the last leg of the digestive system, according to a study of isolated mouse colons published in?JNeurosci. The newly identified neuronal firing pattern may represent an early feature preserved through the evolution of nervous systems. The […]
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Exposure to psychological stress in the form of social conflict alters gut bacteria in Syrian hamsters, according to a new study by Georgia State University. It has long been said that humans have “gut feelings” about things, but how the gut might communicate those “feelings” to the brain was not known. It has been shown […]
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Four new studies reported at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC) 2018 in?Chicago?investigated how the digestive system, including gut and liver functions, may be related to changes in the brain, and to brain disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. The gut microbiome is the community of microorganisms that live in the digestive tracts […]
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A study published recently in?Nature?sheds new light on the connection between the gut and the brain, untangling the complex interplay that allows the byproducts of microorganisms living in the gut to influence the progression of neurodegenerative diseases. Investigators from Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) have been using both animal models and human cells from patients […]
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