Word: gutted
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Technically, they're known as the gut microbiota, a universe of tens of trillions of microbes, which live and thrive in the human intestinal tract and colon and most of which survive without oxygen. These microbes perform an enormous range of vital functions, including helping regulate the calories the body obtains from food and stores as fat. In other words, they may help regulate weight. And a new study published on Nov. 12 in Science Translational Medicine suggests that the particular type and balance of bugs you harbor in your gut may help push your body toward either obesity...
...particular genes. But scientists have long known that these three factors do not adequately explain every case of obesity, and now researchers are discovering increasingly convincing evidence of another important contributor to body weight, one that until recently has been almost completely ignored: the bacteria that live in your gut...
...study builds on previous research in mice that suggests that heavy bodies may have a different makeup of gut bugs than thin ones. The gut microbiota of obese mice has been shown to have significantly more of one main type of bacteria called Firmicutes and fewer of another kind called Bacteroidetes (both types populate human guts as well); in normal mice, the distribution is the opposite. Jeffrey Gordon at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., who conducted the previous research, experimented again with mice for the new paper. This time, however, he and his team used human microbiota to colonize...
Researchers started with mice that were specially bred to be germ-free - with no gut microbiota of their own - and to be able to nurture human gut microbiota. Researchers injected the mice with samples of fresh and frozen human feces, the bacteria from which took hold and colonized in the gut of the mice. If that surprises you, it absolutely stunned the researchers. "We were surprised that so much of the diversity present in human microbial communities could be recaptured in mice," says Gordon, who has been studying gut microbiota for more than five years...
...fact that the human gut flora flourished in the rodents was indeed an experimental coup. Since the mice were genetically engineered to be germ-free, lacking a functioning immune system, the scientists could be certain that any bug colonies that took hold in the mouse guts originated entirely from the human sample, not the mice. Being able to recreate the living human gut environment so faithfully in an animal was a welcome prize. (Read "The Year in Medicine 2008: From...