When it comes to nutrition and product use, I make it a priority to be conscious about my practices for my health and the health of the planet. To start, I eat a plant-based diet and have done so for the past seven years. This choice not only makes me feel better about my environmental and ethical impact, but also is scientifically backed to have many health benefits and I believe positively impacts my microbial communities as well. Eating many fruits and veggies provides a healthy amount of fiber for my gut that feeds the bacteria and increases their numbers and types, which in turn helps lower inflammation as well as aiding in digestion. Additionally, I try to eat as many foods with probiotics, such as yogurt, kombucha, or other fermented foods, and take a probiotic supplement to continue to support my gut where I can. On the other hand, I know I engage in practices that are harmful to my gut microbiome. For example, I had hip surgery back in January and know I had to accept that I needed various antibiotics and medications that were not good for my gut, but protected and healed me in other ways. Therefore, I try to accept when I need things like antibiotics, eat an unhealthy meal, and then I turn to what I can do after to keep building a healthy microbiome. In my opinion, it is a balancing act of continuing to intentionally support your body when making dietary/product choices and not getting too worked up over non-intentional choices that cause harm or scenarios where you want to indulge.

(1) In Richard M Peek Jr.’s paper, titled “Helicobacter pylori cagA+ Strains and Dissociation of Gastric Epithelial Cell Proliferation From Apoptosis,” him and many other physician scientists uncovered that the cagA+ H.pylori strain causes the highest risk for developing gastric cancer by inducing inflammation that leads to epithelial cell proliferation without any increase in cell apoptosis. (2) Researchers were able to come to this conclusion by quantifying inflammation, cell degradation, mucin depletion, intestinal metaplasia and glandular atrophy in biopsy samples from patients that were both infected and not infected with H.pylori. (3) The particular interest in this area stems from a need to better understand what the level of risk for developing gastric cancer is for patients infected with various strains of H.pylori, in order to improve treatments and patient outcomes. (4) By publishing this work in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Dr. Peek and colleagues aim to reach gastroenterologists, oncologists, microbiologists, and others in healthcare and scientific research.

When thinking about gut microbial communities in humans, there are various behaviors that individuals engage in that can cause changes. To start, taking oral antibiotics can dramatically change the amount and types of bacteria present in the gut and potentially have detrimental health impacts. Despite the fact they are often excellent at fighting infections and making it hard for bacteria to survive, this can have consequential effects when it also kills the good bacteria we need in our gut. So although they kill off the bad bacteria, they also end up killing the good which causes changes to the microbiome and can present as dysbiosis and other GI issues. Secondly, when thinking about behaviors that impact the gut, supplementing your diet with fermented foods that are rich in probiotics and even taking a probiotic supplement can have pronounced beneficial effects. By providing the gut with additional beneficial bacteria, it will help keep you healthy by fighting off bad bacteria, aiding in digestion, breakdown and absorb medications and other functions to maintain balance. Additionally, regular exercise has also been proven to improve gut health by way of good heart health and weight maintenance. Research also suggests that working out may increase species diversity in the gut as one study found that athletes had a larger variety of gut bacteria when compared to those that were non-athletes.

Due to the fact that Human papillomavirus has been named one of six cancer causing viruses, scientists are continually working to research new treatments. While being the culprit for almost all cases of cervical cancer in women, HPV has also been linked to causing anogenital cancer as well as some head and neck cancers. At this point, various strains of HPV have been identified to be more high risk than others, which is why research for treatments has been focused on specific strains. Strains such as HPV’s 16, 18, 31, 45 are the most high risk strains for cervical cancer as they account for roughly 80% of cases. Incredibly enough, vaccines have been developed to target the HPV16 and HPV18 strains and they are available now to protect against cancer development from these high risk strains. If a new treatment were to be created, the HPV31 or HPV45 strains should be targeted next in order to continue to eliminate high risk cancer causing strains of HPV. If a vaccine were to be created for HPV31 or HPV45, it would likely need to be administered to children ages 11-12 in accordance with guidelines for the already developed HPV vaccines. Additionally, it would be ideal for vaccines to be developed that would account for all high risk strains of HPV, but given a cost/benefit analysis, the HPV31 and HPV45 would be of upmost importance at this time.

Thinking of the ways in which microbes modulate diseases, we can being to craft a list of such diseases to better understand what microorganisms are and how they act within the human body. To start, micrograms play a role in cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, skin conditions such as eczema, obesity and likely many other other chronic diseases. Over the course of the next 10 weeks we will be exploring such avenues and the mechanisms behind it.

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