Words about science and hiking
The short answer is no. Although nearly all plants contain antimicrobial compounds, these compounds are present only at low concentrations. Diet certainly influences microbiome composition. But this influence works through the availability of foods that different bacteria prefer. “Food antibiotics” are not a thing. Sloppy health journalists are responsible for the confusion. They often call Read More …
Every new discipline goes through an arc of development. First there are the easy discoveries made possible by new technologies or new understandings. Alfred Hershey, who with Martha Chase helped prove that DNA is the carrier of genetic information, once remarked that scientific happiness is “…to have one experiment that works, and keep doing it all Read More …
The genus Penicillium contains over 300 species. Only a few are known to produce penicillins [1] , including P. griseofulvum, P. dipodomys, P. flavigenum, P. nalgiovense, P. chrysogenum and notably P. rubens [2] , the strain with which Fleming made his famous discovery. From Biology The main cheese-making Penicilliums – roqueforti (blue cheese), camemberti, (Camembert and Brie) and glaucum (Gorgonzola) – are not penicillin producers. They do produce other antibacterial metabolites – Read More …
The traditional technological model of the pharma industry – finding small molecules that bind to big molecules and alter their activity – is dying. There simply aren’t enough undrugged proteins left to support the pharma and biotech industries under this paradigm. That particular gold mine is playing out, and it’s time to find a new one. Read More …
Quite possibly, none. Protein digestion begins in the stomach, with acidic hydrolysis (breaking apart by water) and enzymatic cleavage of protein peptide backbones. Protein-degrading enzymes are also abundant in the upper small intestine, which has a relatively low level of bacteria. By the time proteins get to the large intestine, where most of our bacteria Read More …
The evidence for a link between gut bacteria and depression/anxiety disorders is compelling. The gut microbiome of clinically depressed patients is substantially altered [1], and gut disorders such as Inflammatory Bowel Disease show both an altered microbiome and an increased risk of depression [2] . We also know that recurrent antibiotic use, which inevitably disrupts the gut microbiota[3] , Read More …
Gut microbiome composition, with exceptions that I’ll discuss below, is remarkably stable, particularly in adults. Although probiotics are expected to be a $45B business by 2018, their effects on microbiome composition are small and transient. A recent meta-analysis of seven randomized control trials found “a lack of evidence for an impact of probiotics on fecal Read More …
Not far at all. The principal barriers to implementation are regulatory rather than technical. But prepare to be underwhelmed by the results. Most of the action in applying the insights of microbiomics to obesity and related metabolic disorders has come in the form of probiotic (“good” bacteria) or prebiotic (compounds that favor the growth of Read More …