Gut health tagged posts

A new UCLA study has found a connection between how quickly the brain ages and the bacteria and chemical byproducts found in the gut, offering a clue to what drives brain aging long before symptoms appear.

Researchers have long used brain scans to estimate a person’s “brain age,” a measure that can differ from someone’s actual age in years. When a brain looks older than expected on a scan, prior research has linked it to poorer memory, thinking skills and mood. However, most of these studies involved older adults or people with existing brain diseases. Whether this gap between brain age and chronological age means anything in younger, generally healthy people has been unclear.

In a new study published in the journal eBioMedicine, UCLA Health rese...

The new intestinal bacterium is a member of a newly discovered genus Intestinimonas and is able to efficiently produce butyrate from the amino acid lysine, the most abundant amino acid. Credit: Image courtesy of Wageningen University and Research Centre

Fibers in our food are thought to be good for health since they are converted in the intestinal tract into the favorable compound butyrate, that is crucial to maintain intestinal health. In contrast, protein is believed to be less healthy since intestinal fermentation of amino acids, generates undesired compounds. This latter picture is now changing since a novel intestinal bacterium has been isolated by researchers.

The new intestinal bacterium is a member of a newly discovered genus Intestinimonas and is able to efficiently produce butyra...

A University of Oregon study finds abundance does not dictate the immune response to bacteria in the guts of zebrafish. This graphic depicts immune response (neutrophils, shown in green) to separate bacterial species, and the response when the two bacteria are placed into a germ-free fish gut at the same time. Credit: Courtesy of Annah S. Rolig

University of Oregon scientists have found strength in numbers doesn’t hold true for microbes in the intestines.The findings provide a path to study the function of each bacterial species in the gut and to eventually, perhaps, predict and prevent disease...