Maegan Anderson – Blog for BHS 323

The choices that you make can have major affects on gut microbial life whether they are positive or negative. Listed below are 4 different behaviors that people can do that will have major affects on microbial life. The positive two choices are usually behaviors that are usually intention in that people eat better and take probiotics knowing that it will promote health within their bodies. The two negative choices below are behaviors that people usually do without intentionally knowing what the affects can be for their health.

These foods and products have a positive impact on gut microbial life:

• Whole foods/ fruits and vegetables: These types of food contain the nutrients that are important for bacterial health, which promotes different bacterial types, making your gut microbiota more diverse. This allows for the growth of beneficial bacteria verses bacteria that will cause ulcers or inflammation issues.
• Yogurt/ probiotics: Since some types of yogurts (greek and live cultured ones) contain live bacteria within them, they have the ability to insert those cultured bacteria within your gut. Fortunately, the bacteria within probiotics promote health and well being throughout your gut microbial communities. They even have the ability of decreasing the negative effect of exhibiting bacteria that may have already inhabited your body. This can lower the risks of ulcers or inflammation

These foods and products have a negative impact on gut microbial life:

• Drinking too much alcohol: The overuse of alcohol can have a very negative effect on microbial communities within your gut. Alcohol is very toxic, especially in high doses. It can leave your gut bacteria imbalanced or impaired which will not allow them to function normally. This may have a negative effect on your digestion of nutrients and stomach secretions within your gut.
• Overuse of Antibiotics: Using any types of antibiotics can have a chance of lowering or altering the amount of gut microbial life. Long term overuse of antibiotics can lead to a permanent damage to microbial life that affects both the good and bad bacteria. Antibiotics might also completely change the species of gut bacteria that your body has by killing the kind that was there before antibiotics. This allows for the invasion of bacteria that are resistant to the type of antibiotic used.

Overeating:
Obesity has been found to have a detrimental impact on your gut microbial life. Person’s who consume large quantities of processed foods can actually impact the life that belongs in their gut. Normally people have a 90% percentage of similar gut microbes (Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes) but with obesity, it has been shown that there are more Firmicutes and fewer Bacteroidetes (John 2016). Overall, the amount of diversity decreases across your whole gut microbial life. The over processed foods do not give the proper nutrition in the small intestine to sustain different types of bacteria, which results in their death. This can be very bad for microbe-specific activities in your gut, the major one being the metabolic pathway. This can lead to slow metabolic pathways, which doesn’t allow for people to correctly and efficiently process the foods that they eat.

Not eating enough:
People who do not get enough food or nutrition in their diets (whether by choice or not) have a large impact on their gut microbes. Without necessary nutrition, these bacteria are unable to reach full maturity (Monira, 2011). This is very bad for your health. If your microbes are not fully mature, that leads to not fully functioning cells. The microbes are unable to fully break down foods in your body and decrease your likeness of gaining weight by nutrient absorption. This leads to fatigue and an even further puts the person in the situation to be malnourished.

Increase in exercise:
An increase in exercise leads to enhanced microbial diversity in your gut and has been shown to also increase butyrate-producing microbes (Haridy, 2017). Butyrate microbes have been linked to a healthy colon conditions. This has a very beneficial effect on human health. A good colon has been shown to decrease dehydration and speed up bowel elimination.

Lack of sleep:
Not getting enough sleep can have a very negative effect on your gut microbes and overall health. Lack of sleep has been shown to change your circadian rhythms (the normal sleep cycles), which doesn’t allow the gut microbes to sufficiently decay and renew the microbial life. Renewal and decay doesn’t only occur during your sleep cycles but part of it has been linked to doing so (Breus, 2016).Without sufficient sleep, your gut microbes can’t perform their normal functions such as lower levels of cortisol, produce serotonin, and produce probiotics (which increases levels of tryptophan)(Morea, 2017).

1. John, G. K. and G. E. Mullin. 2016. “The Gut Microbiome and Obesity.” Current oncology reports.Retrieved January 26, 2018 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27255389)
2. Monira, Shirajum et al. 2011. “Gut Microbiota of Healthy and Malnourished Children in Bangladesh.” Frontiers. Retrieved January 26, 2018 (https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2011.00228/full)
3. Haridy, Rich. 2017. “Exercise can beneficially alter the composition of your gut microbiome.” New Atlas – New Technology & Science News. Retrieved January 26, 2018 (https://newatlas.com/exercise-gut-bacteria-composition/52472/).
4. Breus, Dr. Michael J. 2016. “Unlocking the Sleep-Gut Connection.” The Huffington Post. Retrieved January 26, 2018 (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-michael-j-breus/unlocking-the-sleep-gut-connection_b_8941314.html).
5. Morea, Jamie. 2017. “Is Gut Health The Key To A Good Night’s Sleep? – Thrive Global.” Thrive Global. Retrieved January 26, 2018 (https://journal.thriveglobal.com/is-gut-health-the-key-to-a-good-nights-sleep-414e9e7df545?gi=4bd02de155cd).

After reading this article, I would recommend that they focus on making a new treatment that also covered the strains 31 and 45. Since there is a vaccination already available for HPV 16 and 18, it would only make sense to also make treatments for types 31 and 45 since together they all (strains 16, 18, 31, and 45) make up nearly 80% of all cervical cases. In a perfect world, it would be amazing to have the ability to vaccinate against all strains but I would definitely recommend making treatments for the strains that are most frequently seen. Hopefully making a treatment for these two strains would be less complicated than a strain that isn’t well documented or frequent. As far as when the recommended dosage should be given to the public, it would need to be before a person becomes sexually active. HPV is contracted through sexual contact with the genital areas. It is really important that both girls and boys are given vaccinations before they reach that point in maturity. I would recommend given the treatments to young teens roughly in middle school years (roughly 11-14). It might seem young but culturally teens are shown to be sexually experimenting at younger and younger ages.

In the primary research paper “Symbiotic gut microbes modulate human metabolic phenotypes” (2007), Min Li et al used a multivariate strategy to show the covariation between gut microbiomic structural patterns as using NMR spectroscopic urinary profiling to connect metabloic phenotypes and structure of gut microbiome and patterns in host physiology or pathology. Min Li et al found produced evidence of variation between Subdoligranulum variable BI-114 which produces 4-cresol that links variation between different gut bacteria and metabolites found in urine. The purpose of this paper was to identify another method of testing to be done on human hosts to connect differences in gut bacteria to specific pathologies or phenotypes. The intended audience is aimed at persons who are in the medical field or researchers who are interested in pathologies involved with gut bacteria.

Here is my list of human non-infectious diseases that are influenced by microorganisms:
asthma
cystic fibrosis
emphysema
diabetes mellitus
lupus
celiac
MS: multiple sclerosis
rheumatoid arthritis