This term all of the papers we have read have been very interesting because they correlate to chronic diseases which were before thought to not relate to bacteria or other microbes. I think it would be interesting to see what kinds of diets affect the microbiome and how they do; for example, veganism, vegetarianism or even fad diets such as keto or intermittent fasting. It would also be interesting to learn more about the relationship between the microbiome and vaccines, as this is a very controversial topic. I have throughly enjoyed reading a lot about the microbiome and obesity, and what other factors increase the risk. I also liked learning about pre-,pro- and syn-biotics. I would like to learn more about which specific pre-pro- and syn-biotics have an overall benefit for health.
Fad diets such as keto promotes the consumption of high protein and high fat diets, while lowering the overall consumption of carbohydrates. I would imagine that this has a negative health effect on the gut microbiome as many fruits are excluded from the diet, which can be a great source of probiotics. Furthermore, high-fat diets are often diets which mice are fed when conducting studies on obese mice. I would like to know also how other diets such as intermittent fasting affect the gut because this encourages people to eat within a 8-hour time period everyday or to fast for 24-hours once or twice a week. The diet is not limited to certain foods so this could vary greatly among participants but I am not sure how the fasting periods affect the gut.
I might begin to prepare for my final paper by looking for articles about a specific diet and how it affects the microbiome. I can then organize the papers by diet or later decide if I would like to focus on just one. Once I have a clear argument to make, I can start an outline to make a roadmap for my paper.
