Some interesting research about the The Wild World of the Microbiome If you have been paying attention to the media in the last year or so, you have likely noticed an explosion in the number of stories relating to the microbiome, the collection of bacteria that live on and in our bodies. Much of the recent research shows that the microbiome has some surprising effects on us physiologically. One recent study on the widely used immune-boosting botanical Astragalus attributed its efficacy more to the plant-associated microflora rather than the active ingredient itself!1 One remarkable consideration about this finding is that Astragalus has been used as an immune-boosting medicinal plant for millennia. If this research bears out, it implies that the Astragalus-associated microbiome has been intact and participating in the plants medicinal benefits for millennia. Another intriguing study published in the journal Nature looked at the marine bacteria found on common seaweed such as nori, consumed in large quantities by the Japanese. Research found that genetic material from these bacteria is transferred to the bacteria in the gut microbiome of the people who consume the seaweed. While this isnt totally surprising -bacteria engage in this kind of horizontal gene transfer (from bacteria to bacteria) all of the time- what is remarkable is that the genes that took up residence in the human gut metagenome code for enzymes needed to digest the seaweed! If you think about it, the implications of this kind of horizontal transfer from food are huge: What genes are our patients metagenomes adopting from those nutrient-void, AGE-dense fast food meals? What are the implications of this regarding genetically modified foods? While much of this remains an open question, we certainly know a lot more about the microbiome and its effects on the immune system than we did just a year ago.
Posted on: Sat, 09 Nov 2013 16:10:23 +0000