This is a brief excerpt from August 2013 Issue of Prevention magazine, an in the article titled; The Terrarium In Your Tummy proved noteworthy. It states that bacteria swarming in our guts and intestines are the bodies biggest truth tellers. That might sound gross since we wagged warfare on bacteria with hand sanitizers, while bathing in anti bacterial soaps and popping penicillin tablets at the first sign of a stomach viruses.
Antibotics first came into wide use after World War II and they’re more ubiquitous than ever before with the average child taking at least a dozen courses before age eighteen. As Dr. Martin Blaser, professor of medicine, microbiology and The Director of the Microbiome Program at New York University. Whom since 1985, is one of the greatest pioneers states, childhood is the worse time to be exposed because a developing bodies are more susceptible to food allergies.
Take Helicobactor pylori, which is an ancient gastric species that can wriggle around in your gut for eons, even though this microbe increases your risk for gastric cancer, it seems to protect against other types of cancers, asthma and allergies. H ~ pylori microbes can be difficult to classify as either “good” or ‘bad,’ Because they seemingly switch in function from person to person and in different contexts. While seemingly disappearing due to the over use of antibiotics?
Dr. Blaser whom recently coauthored a study in the journal, Nature found feeding mice low steady doses of antibiotics caused them to pack on fat. In another study Dr. Blaser published in the International Journal of Obesity, scientist studied 11,000 children and found that those exposed to antibiotics before 6 months of age consistently higher BMI’s later in life. However, Dr. Jeff Leach Ph.D and Cofounder of the American Gut Project, states gut colonies in people around the world is different.
Dr. Leach suspects the difference around the world comes from the differing diets people around the world consume and when you consume different kinds of plants. The dietary fiber travels to your colon which is a fermentation breeding factory…. where microbes munch on the fiber and make your colon more acidic and resistant to pathogens. Therefore, eating more plants will feed the healthy microbes which may indeed fight off the bad guys measured as Blautia.
Understanding the strains of bacteria contributes to the disease or cure and is the holy grail of microbiome research and targeted probiotics are the future in medicine. Dr. Blaser says, “when you know a person has condition X, and your treating with bacteria Y and that will change their metabolism and immune system in a specific method that’s the basis for microbiome research.” Also Dr. Joseph Petrosino Ph.D., at Baylor College of Medicine states in the not so distant future physicians will take into account…. gut profiling for patients whom walk into any doctors office.