With trillions of coexisting bacteria, fungi, parasites, and viruses, the human microbiome is analogous to the busy streets of New York. Although the largest numbers of inhabitants live in the large and small intestine, the microbiome is also found throughout the body. Every person has a unique microbiome that begins forming during their first exposure to microbes, at birth, and continues forming through outlets like breastmilk, before an infant has its adult microbiota at age 3. The organisms in one’s microbiome are directly influenced by where someone lives, what they eat and even who their parents are. A persons microbiome is responsible for things like stimulating the immune system, breaking down potentially toxic foods and synthesizing vitamins like B and K.
However, that’s not all the microbiome can do. New research suggests ties between the microbiome and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). IBD is a chronic immune-mediated disease affecting the gastrointestinal tract. Along with IBD, the gut microbiome may also be tied to obesity and type 2 diabetes. The 2 diseases are very closely tied and it is hard to determine independent relationships between each disease and the microbiome. However a research unit from Kiel University studied the microbiomes of of 633 lean, non-diabetics and 494 obese, non-diabetics, and 153 obese people in 2 German cohorts. Together, they concluded that “while obesity is associated with gut microbial variation, gut microbiomes associations with type 2 diabetes are modest.”
Research about the effects of the microbiome on disease and health are not extensive enough at this time. Since the gut microbiota is thought to control so many different aspects of life, more funding needs to be driven into research to explore the depths of its effects. I believe that with more time and effort, there are so many more possibilities to explore and more diseases that can be helped with manipulation of the microbiome.
jill and micro 