A list of behaviors which could cause changes the gut microbial community:
Antibiotics: Today, antibiotics are not unique to specific bacteria and target essential characteristics of bacteria. This means that antibiotics are not discriminatory to the type of bacteria and the overall number and diversity of the microbes will be lower.
Age: In the article “Role of the gut microbiota in health and chronic gastrointestinal disease: understanding a hidden metabolic organ”, it describes how the gut microbial community of children are very different than that of adults. At the age of 2, the microbiome ism mostly developed and similar to adults. Furthermore, older adults also have varying microbiomes of young adults.
Diet: In “An Altered Gut Microbiome Profile in a Child Affected by Crohn ’ s Disease Normalized After Nutritional Therapy”, we see that a change in diet that includes an increase in proteins, antioxidants, and anti-inflammatory fats is correlated with a regression of CD. The foods we eat pass through our gut and can either contain nutrients which promote or decrease the health of our flora.
Probiotics: Ingesting helpful bacterial strains may not contain the needed amount of bacteria to balance the gut microbiome but can help those strains to begin colonizing. This would be helpful for your gut microbial community and could reduce inflammation and other side effects which unhealthy microbiomes are associated with.
Smoking: This could cause an unbalanced flora by increasing the amount of potentially harmful bacteria and decreasing the number of beneficial.
Environment: A study described in “An Altered Gut Microbiome Profile in a Child Affected by Crohn ’ s Disease Normalized After Nutritional Therapy” mentions how elders living in long-stay care versus in a community, had less diverse and lowered amounts of microbiota. Different environments can be more or less microbe-rich, and living in the latter could cause a negative shift to the gut microbiome.
