Tag: Human Microbiome

Posted on

Fibromyalgia: a Mystery Disease?

What is Fibromyalgia and who does it affect? 

Could you imagine waking up every day with pain that never goes away? That is the reality many fibromyalgia sufferers experience in their everyday lives. Fibromyalgia is from the Latin word fiber (fiber) and the Greek words myo (muscle) and algos (pain). These root words offer a glimpse into what fibromyalgia is and how it causes suffering. It is a pain of the fibrous tissues and muscle in the human body. While anyone of any background regardless of race or ethnicity can get fibromyalgia, it typically affects women more than men (NIH, 2024). You are more likely to develop fibromyalgia as you age, and if a family member has fibromyalgia. There are cases of children and young adults having fibromyalgia, but it usually occurs in middle-aged women (Erdrich et al., 2023).

Around 2 to 4% of adults live with the challenges of fibromyalgia (Stewart, 2022). They wake up, feeling exhausted, struggling to get through daily tasks, and facing unpredictable flare-ups. This chronic condition, along with many other symptoms mentioned can affect your mental health,  sleep and cognitive issues like brain fog, chronic headaches, and memory impairment. In addition, It can also make you more at risk for depression and anxiety by more than 50% (Freirich et al., 2021). Figure 1(A) displays many of the possible or common symptoms that sufferers of fibromyalgia have. The National Institute of Health has a great page about fibromyalgia, including its symptoms, causes and an overview. 

Continue reading “Fibromyalgia: a Mystery Disease?”
Posted on

Heart Health in Your Gut: How the Microbiome Affects Cardiovascular Disease

When we think about heart health, the gut probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. However, new research is shedding light on how the trillions of microorganisms living in our digestive tract—collectively known as the gut microbiome—may play a surprising role in cardiovascular disease (Zhang, Y. et al., 2022).

Cardiovascular Disease: The World’s Deadliest Threat

Cardiovascular disease (CVD), is an umbrella term for conditions affecting the heart and blood vessels, including coronary artery disease (CAD), stroke and high blood pressure. These conditions are the leading cause of death worldwide, with heart attack and stroke being responsible for 85% of these deaths (World Health Organization, 2021). While many factors contribute to CVD, including diet, lifestyle, and genetics, scientists are discovering that the composition of our gut microbiome might also be a key player (Zhang, Y. et al., 2022).

Continue reading “Heart Health in Your Gut: How the Microbiome Affects Cardiovascular Disease”
Posted on

What do mamas’ genes have to do with a babies’ guts?

A little bit about Human Milk and its benefits

For as long as we can remember, breastfeeding has been the ideal way to get all the nutrients to an infant (CDC, 2024). Across the world this has been the most natural way of feeding an infant; today there have been alternatives provided to help substitute breast milk. Having these options help mothers that are not able to breastfeed or would like to substitute.In the studies done by Gomes-Gallego et al and Jost et al, focused on the benefits that breastfeeding brings to a mother as well as the infant(Gomez-Gallego et al., 2016)(Jost et al., 2014). The long term benefits can be a bit difficult to determine past the infant stage. Various studies have focused on the gut microbiome, which is a bunch of microorganisms (bacteria) that are found in your body, that is seen in the maternal milks and how that impacts the infant’s gut microbiome (Gomez-Gallego et al, 2016). 

Researchers Babakobi et al., were able to find a link between the changes in the mother’s milk composition and how that change can impact the bacteria that is seen in the infants gut (Babakobi et al., 2020). Researchers focused on human milk oligosaccharides (HMO), a complex sugar that has beneficial effects on the development of a healthy microbiome for an infant. They found that the amount of proteins and lactose sugars that are essential for the composition of human milk can vary between women but is essential for the establishment of a healthy and mature gut (Pace et al., 2021)(Ballard & Marrow, 2013) . The composition of human milk is essential for the proper gut maturation and metabolic function as well as providing immune system development of infants. Human milk is made of fats, proteins, sugars and immune components, but what role do mothers’ genetics play in the composition of milk? Johnson et al., focuses on the relationship between maternal genotype, milk composition and infant health. Going into detail on how maternal genetics and gene expression of milk can lead to benefits in the development of the infant microbiome.

Continue reading “What do mamas’ genes have to do with a babies’ guts?”
Posted on

Finish your antibiotics completely, the future depends on it!

Background

You’ve most likely had an infection that required treatment with antibiotics. At the time that you were prescribed antibiotics, you probably heard that familiar spiel about needing to take the entire course of antibiotics even if you feel better before finishing them. You might be wondering, why does it matter? Hopefully after reading this post you will be able to answer that question for yourself.

 As you might imagine, bacteria developing the ability to survive antibiotic treatment is bad news for us. This means that over time, our commonly used antibiotics are becoming less effective at killing bacteria. As bacteria evolves more antibiotic resistance, we may no longer be able to treat common infections unless we come up with another alternative treatment. It is important that we try to delay the evolution of antibiotic resistance as much as we can to buy time to develop other effective treatments. So what are the driving forces of bacterial evolution and what can we do about it? 

Continue reading “Finish your antibiotics completely, the future depends on it!”
Posted on

What’s in US Ambulances?

Background

Ambulances are in almost every city in the United States. Depending on the city and service, ambulances can go on over a dozen calls a day. With each call and patient, healthcare workers and ambulance surfaces are exposed to new organisms. EMS (Emergency Medical Services) providers are constantly treating and transporting patients with viral infections and bacterial infections, trauma patients with open wounds, and patients with weak immune systems, such as young children and elderly (Caroline, 2013). Depending on the service, certain ambulances might get a higher population of patients with weakened immune systems than others, or more patients that have spent prolonged periods of time in hospitals. Continue reading “What’s in US Ambulances?”

Posted on

Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria in the Human Water Cycle

Image provided by International Water Association

Background:
About 70% of the planet is covered in water with about 60% of your body being made up of water. Lakes, rivers, and reservoirs contain some of the most diverse and abundant communities of bacteria according to a 16S rRNA gene study by Tamames et al. (2010). Our own microbiota interact daily with these different communities as we drink, bathe, and excrete bacteria. One of the more pressing issues in today’s modern medicine is antibiotic resistant bacteria that are becoming increasingly hard to treat. Antibiotic resistance is caused by evolution of bacteria, which is the bacteria gaining antibiotic genes that increase its fitness. In the presences of antibiotics, bacteria that are lacking a resistance mutation die, whereas bacteria with immunity to antibiotics have a higher survival rate. These antibiotic resistant bacteria then pass on that resistance to antibiotics to the next generation, as well as potentially other bacteria through lateral gene transfer, which is the transfer of genetic material between a parent and daughter bacteria. Continue reading “Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria in the Human Water Cycle”

Posted on

How the gut microbiome is impacted: Patients with stage 4 hepatitis C virus

Background:

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a liver infection that is a worldwide major health problem. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), they estimated approximately 71 million people in the world with chronic HCV. In this blog I will be focusing more on chronic HCV and how it affects our gut microbiome. There are many different genotypes of the virus, and sadly there is still no pre-exposure prophylaxis available to this day but there is currently much research being done on HCV (CDC, 2018). Following the chronic infection, most people will develop cirrhosis or liver cancer. A large portion of the people who die from HCV die because they have already entered the terminal stages of cirrhosis or hepatocellular carcinoma. Cirrhosis is a serious disease that occurs once liver cells are damaged with scar tissue, when the organ starts to fail the patient will die unless they receive a liver transplant (CDC, 2018). Hepatocellular carcinoma is a type of cancer that is correlated with hepatitis C virus, hepatitis B virus, heavy drinking, iron storage diseases or aflatoxin (CDC, 2018). The most common sources of HCV infection are by injection drugs, using contaminated needles, and transfusions of blood that has not been tested for blood pathogens. Throughout the years there has been a significant amount of research on the role of gut microbiota in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and liver cirrhosis, but there is not much research on chronic hepatitis C and the human microbiome. This is because most of the other research focuses on how alcohol affects the liver. Continue reading “How the gut microbiome is impacted: Patients with stage 4 hepatitis C virus”

Posted on

The Connection Between Our Personalities and Our Gut Microbes

Image provided by vrx/Shuttestock via Shape.

Background

Personality, according to the American Psychological Association, refers to “individual differences in characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving’. In short, it’s what makes us us, what makes me different from you. It shapes how we process and understand our individual lives and all the nuances they bring, and in turn those experiences also shape our personality.

Though it may have seemed obvious, there have been recent findings that personality could play a larger role than we may have thought in determining an individual’s health. For example, Youyou et al found computer-based personality judgements could predict an individual’s physical health or even if they’re more prone to substance use (Youyou et al 2015). Continue reading “The Connection Between Our Personalities and Our Gut Microbes”

Posted on

Which came first, antibiotics, or antibiotic-resistance? A study of Uncontacted Amerindians.

The geographical location of the Yanomami tribe as a whole. The specific village exists in the highlighted region.   (Image courtesy of Viralfast)

Background

The Yanomami people are patches of isolated South American tribes who occupy mountainous regions of southern Venezuela. Recently, a Yanomami tribe of 34 subjects discovered by helicopter, was investigated by a team of researchers who accompanied medical care professionals who were providing care to the villagers. These researchers, Clemente et. al. (2015), then wrote the paper, “The microbiome of uncontacted Amerindians’ to analyze this population which was uniquely untouched by Western Society. An interesting topic that this research paper addresses is antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Antibiotic-resistance are the adaptations of a bacterial species in response to antibiotics. Antibiotics are medications that have been developed in more recent times to destroy bacteria cells but not human cells. They do this by targeting specific differences between the two types of cells, for instance, penicillin inhibits the synthesis of the peptidoglycan layer of bacterial cell walls a feature not present in animal cells. Other bacteria have distinct DNA replication processes and some antibiotics are able to interrupt that function as well. This Yanomami population is intriguing because their microbiomes are likely the most accurate representation of an ancient human microbiome due to their isolation from the Western world. The presence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the Yanomami gut provides evidence for the claim that antibiotic-resistant bacteria have been around since before the invention of antibiotics, so stay tuned for a persuasive evidentiary argument further down. Clemente et. al.  also state that the Yanomami population that is sampled is the most diverse microbiome ever recorded. It is important to understand what kind of diversity the researchers are talking about. The Yanomami show extremely high beta diversity when compared to Guahibo, Malawi, and U.S. populations but exhibit low alpha diversity amongst individuals in the village population. Beta diversity represents the differences in species composition among samples while alpha diversity is just the diversity of each sample. This means that the Yanomami microbiome sample is extremely unique but microbiomes within that sample are very similar, this is most likely due to the Yanomami leading vastly different lifestyles than Western societies and individuals in the village being in extremely close quarters with each other (eating the same food, drinking from the same water source, no waste removal, etc.). Continue reading “Which came first, antibiotics, or antibiotic-resistance? A study of Uncontacted Amerindians.”

Posted on

Do the microbes in your gut affect cognitive and behavioral development?

Blue puzzel pieces with a brain, the gut, neurons, and bacteria on separate pieces. Almost interlocking.
Figure 1. Puzzle pieces connecting gut and microbes and the brain (Image courtesy of Jennifer Franklin).

 Background

Neuronal development is especially critical in adolescent years (Paus, 2005; O’Connor & Cryan, 2014). Consequentially, this time is also when doctors see the onset of mental illness and behavioral abnormalities that include, but are not limited to, anxiety and mood disorders (O’Connor & Cryan, 2014; Paus, Keshavan & Giedd, 2008). The causal relationships of these atypical behaviors that are seen in mental illness have long been debated. Some scholars believe deficient diets lead to cognitive and short-term memory disabilities (Bondi et al, 2014), whereas others suggest that errors in the human genome could affect brain development and induce mental illness (Guo et al, 2009). In recent years, researchers have brought forward the idea that the microbes in our gut could influence the development of our brain. Continue reading “Do the microbes in your gut affect cognitive and behavioral development?”