High-fat diets have long been known to increase the risk for heart disease and stroke, but there is new evidence to link diets high in fat with a range of psychiatric disorders. Central to this newly recognized mind-gut relationship are the microorganisms that inhabit our intestines – the gut microbiome. Increasingly, scientists are finding the […]
Tag Archives | Gut flora
Gut flora link to Parkinson’s disease
Medical researchers in Finland hope that their discovery of a significant variation in the gut microbiota of Parkinson’s sufferers could be used to improve diagnostics for the disease and perhaps even prevent it. The new research was made possible by funding from the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research and the Finnish Parkinson Foundation. […]
Obesity could be an evolutionary hangover from prehistoric gut bacteria
Today, obesity is considered to be undesirable, but in the past getting more fat and more energy from the diet might have been important to survival in cold places. This, according to a new study in the journalBiology Letters, might explain the dramatic differences in gut bacteria observed in people from different latitudes. Researchers at […]
Modified gut flora could end malnutrition
A new study conducted in sub-Saharan Africa found that bacteria living in the intestine are an underlying cause of childhood malnutrition, leading researchers to suggest that many infant deaths in the developing world could be prevented by simply altering microbial communities in the gut. The study, conducted in Malawi, was led by researchers from the […]