microbiome

Anyone watching their waistline this holiday season may want to pay attention to what their gut bacteria are eating. It's not just calories that matter in a healthy diet -- it's fiber that resists digestion by the body but is readily eaten by bacteria in the gut. The amount of fiber in someone's...

Bacteria living in the murky depths of the digestive system seem to influence whether tumours shrink during cancer therapy, say French and US researchers. They tested the microbiome - the collection of microscopic species that live in us - in cancer patients. Two studies, in the journal...

Objective: To review the data from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) for the roles of microbiota, pre-, pro- and synbiotics in metabolic conditions (obesity, prediabetes, and diabetes mellitus type 2 [DM2]). Methods: Primary literature was reviewed on the topics including RCTs of pre-, pro-...

A growing body of evidence indicates that the trillions of microbes that live on and inside our bodies affect our health. Collectively, these resident microbes form our microbiome. Earlier research has found, for example, that changes in the species composition of bacterial communities living...

Our gut microbiomes -- the bacteria that live in our digestive tract -- play major roles in our health. Scientists around the world are studying therapies that manipulate the microbiome, including probiotics (such as live bacterial cultures in yogurt), prebiotics (edible fibers meant to promote...