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What do we know about the newly discovered organ of the human body?

 

 

 

 

Microbiome, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Diabetes, Fatty liver disease, Multiple Sclerosis, Depression, Anxiety, Holistic Healing, Functional Medicine, Obesity

Let me introduce to you to the newly discovered 2-3 pound organ in our body. It is called the microbiome.It is the microbiome. The microbiome comprises of about 10-100 trillion bacteria residing all over our body including the gut, skin, vagina and lungs. Most of them reside in our gut. We have 10 times more bacterial cells than human cells and this means that we have 100 times more bacterial genes than human genes. There are many diverse groups of these bacteria and each one us has our unique set of bacteria or our unique microbiome.

 

There are 3 types of bacteria in our gut

 

  • Symbionts-These bacteria live in our gut and perform different functions for us like making vitamins in exchange for the food that they receive from us.

  • Commensals-These bacteria are neither beneficial nor harmful. They live peacefully but have the capacity to turn into symbionts or parasites.

  • Parasitic-These bacteria are toxic and produce disease

 

These bacteria affect each and every system of our body.

 

 

Hormonal System: These bacteria secrete hormones, they regulate the expression of our hormones and they are affected by our hormones. They have been linked to development of type 1 and type 2 Diabetes, Obesity and Fatty liver disease.

 

 

Gastrointestinal System: Changes in gut microbiom has been linked to inflammation in the gut leading to diseases such as Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

 

 

Heart and Blood vessels: These bacteria have the capacity to change the composition of our blood and urine. In doing so it affects development of heart disease.

 

 

Brain: We have a lot of evidence indicating that when we are stressed, then the composition of our gut microbiome changes which then influences our behavior as well as leads to stress related disorders such as depression and anxiety. Autism has also been linked to changes in the microbiome.

 

 

Immune Function: The microbiome has been found to play an important role in altering our immune system including both our innate (non-specific defence mechanism) as well as adaptive immunity (Defense mechanism targeted towards specific antigens foreign to the body) . It has been shown that changes in certain commensal bacteria leads to development to autoimmune diseases like multiple Sclerosis.

 

 

Do you know what your gut microbiome looks like? There are stool tests that can be done to look at your microbiome and to identify the ratio of symbionts to parasitic bacteria in your gut. Clearly if we have chronic illness then we need to pay attention to our microbiome as a possible source of the problem. Also the presence of gut symptoms needs to be taken seriously because it may be an early indicator of potential future problems.

 

 

Nadia Ali, M.D, M.B;B.S, MPH, ABHIM, FACP

Integrative Medicine, Functional Medicine, Ayurveda, Mind Body Medicine, Aromatherapy and Nutrition Consultant

www.theholistichealing.org

 

 

References:

 

  • FEMS Microbiol Rev. 2015 Feb 19. pii: fuu010. [Epub ahead of print]. Microbial endocrinology: the interplay between the microbiota and the endocrine system.Neuman H1, Debelius JW2, Knight R2, Koren O3.

  • JAMA. 2015 Mar 3;313(9):949-58. doi: 10.1001/jama.2015.0954. Irritable bowel syndrome: a clinical review. Chey WD1, Kurlander J1, Eswaran S1.

  • Circ Cardiovasc Genet. 2015 Feb;8(1):187-91. Does our gut microbiome predict cardiovascular risk? A review of the evidence from metabolomics. Griffin JL1, Wang X2, Stanley E2.

  • Gut Microbes. 2015 Feb 3:0. [Epub ahead of print]. Gut microbial markers are associated with diabetes onset, regulatory imbalance, and IFN-γ level in NOD Mice. Krych Ł1, Nielsen DS, Hansen AK, Hansen CH.

  • Rev Endocr Metab Disord. 2015 Mar;16(1):55-65. doi: 10.1007/s11154-015-9309-0. The role of gut microbiota in the development of type 1, type 2 diabetes mellitus and obesity. Tai N1, Wong FS, Wen L.

  • Atherosclerosis. 2015 Mar;239(1):192-202. doi: 0.1016/j.atherosclerosis.2015.01.001. Epub 2015 Jan 13. A concise review of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Than NN1, Newsome PN2.

  • Adv Exp Med Biol. 2014;817:373-403. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4939-0897-4_17. The impact of microbiota on brain and behavior: mechanisms & therapeutic potential. Borre YE1, Moloney RD, Clarke G, Dinan TG, Cryan JF.

  • Lupus. 2014 May;23(6):518-26. doi: 10.1177/0961203313501401.Diet, microbiota and autoimmune diseases. Vieira SM1, Pagovich OE, Kriegel MA.

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