Author: Jem Taskin

Generally, when I am making a conscious decision about what food I am going to consume I generally try and eat the healthier option. When I say healthy I mean, staying away from very greasy meals or meals loaded with carbohydrates. I try and eat as much protein as possible, such as chicken, as well as as many vegetables as possible with my meals. I generally try and monitor my carbohydrate intake as I don’t find too much nutritional value in just eating a large amount of carbs in order to be full. I always try and include vegetables because I believe they are a great source of vitamins and provide immune system boost as well as very supportive of other physiological functions. When I do choose to eat out I generally try and eat sandwiches from places such as Jimmy Johns or grocery stores, staying away from just large amounts of greasy foods like hamburgers, pizzas, and fried food. I think that these choices have a positive impact on the microbial community in my gut. Eating less fast food and eating more protein and vegetables promotes the growth of healthy bacteria and bacteria that can break down these healthy foods. Some of my non-intentional decisions may have negative affects on my microbial community though. I sometimes get cravings for sweets or chocolate after a nice meal and that leads me to search for and eat foods loaded with sugar on occasion even though I know I shouldn’t be eating them. This could be promoting the growth of unhealthy and possibly virulent bacteria that are not good for my stomach. Overall, I believe I keep a good balance of foods in my diet that promote an overall healthy gut microbiome.

Cheng-Yen Kao, Bor-Shyang Sheu, and Jiunn-Jong Wu are professors at National Cheng Kung University in Tainan, Taiwan, who wrote a review article titled, “Helicobacter pylori infection: An overview of bacterial virulence factors and pathogenesis” where they highlight the key findings of H. pylori virulence factors reported over the past 20 years. The authors state the four general steps that occur with H. pylori infection, and then precede to describe these steps in great detail, highlighting all of the interactions between the stomach and bacteria. The purpose of this review article is to breakdown the exact virulent mechanisms employed by this bacteria in the human gut down to the enzymatic level in order to combine all research done on the infection of H. pylori. The intended audience of Kao, Sheu, and Wu is that of scientific scholars in microbiology, that are looking for a detailed summary on the virulence factors involved in H. pylori infection.

Taking antibiotics:

-Taking antibiotics for an infection of a certain bacteria can be beneficial in the sense that it kills the bacteria causing the affection but it’s effect on the rest of the microbial community could be detrimental. Antibiotics can kill many of the good bacteria that are present in the human gut and cause an imbalance of the microbiota. Many bacteria that help the immune system or metabolism could die and would then be detrimental to the health of an individual.

Taking probiotics:

-probiotics are cultured bacteria that have been proven to be the healthy bacteria for the human gut and is an aid in restoring gut microbiota. Oral ingestion of probiotic products can help increase the amount of bacteria in the gut that people could possibly be lacking or showing levels below healthy and is beneficial to GI microbiota. Obese individuals tend to have an imbalance of microbes in their gut and there have been promising results of probiotics restoring this imbalance and helping people suffering from obesity lose weight.

Faecal microbial transplantation:

Faecal microbial transplantation is starting to become a more commonly used method for restoring gastric microbiota. This transplantation reintroduces a community of gastric microbes from a healthy donor to an individual with a gastric disease. This transplant has proven to be very effective in individuals infected with Clostridium difficile, showing disease remission in up to 92% of cases. Overall, FMT seems to be very beneficial for people who are struggling with microbial infection and have an imbalance of microbes.

If I were a healthcare professional and had to decide which HPV strains should be included in a new treatment I would include all of the high-risk strains; HPVs 16, 18, 31, and 45. There are so many strains of HPV out there but these four strains account for about 80% of cervical cancer. It is cost inefficient to include all strains in the treatment especially since HPVs 16 and 18 are the novel and most common strains that cause the most cases of genital warts. My biggest concern as a healthcare provider is to make sure we have the best disease coverage possible but also be as cost efficient as possible. Additionally, I want to ensure that we can prevent genital warts from becoming malignant, and these four strains have been identified as carcinogenic strains causing ~80% of cervical cancer, while many other strains are “probable” or “possibly carcinogenic” and covering them in our treatment could be a huge waste of resources. The goal is to prevent spread of genital warts from HPV acquisition as well as prevent people from getting cancer from this virus and the most effective way to do that is cover the most common strains as well as the strains linked to cancer. The treatment should be administered sometime in the 10-12 age range so that the patients are fully protected for years before they become sexually active and have the antibodies for these virus strains come the time they choose to become active.

Some human non-infectious diseases that I know of that are influenced by microorganisms are:

-various cancers, asthma, diabetes, epilepsy, hypertension, psychiatric diseases such as bipolar disorder and Alzheimer’s, glaucoma, high cholesterol, depression, gastroesophageal reflux disease, arthritis, ADHD, and arrhythmia.

I have been studying for the pharmacy technician certification exam the past few weeks and had to memorize drugs that treat these diseases so I was able to name quite a few off the top of my head.

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