High-fiber diet keeps gut microbes from eating the colon's lining, protects against infection, animal study shows -- ScienceDaily. It sounds like the plot of a 1950s science fiction movie: normal, helpful bacteria that begin to eat their host from within, because they don't get what they want. But new research shows that's exactly what happens when microbes inside the digestive system don't get the natural fiber that they rely on for food. Starved, they begin to munch on the natural layer of mucus that lines the gut, eroding it to the point where dangerous invading bacteria can infect the colon wall. In a new paper in Cell, an international team of researchers show the impact of fiber deprivation on the guts of specially raised mice. The mice were born and raised with no gut microbes of their own, then received a transplant of 14 bacteria that normally grow in the human gut.
Scientists know the full genetic signature of each one, making it possible to track their activity over time. The researchers also saw that the mix of bacteria changed depending on what the mice were being fed, even day by day. Infections and Antibiotic Use Linked to Manic Episodes in People With Serious Mental Illness – Neuroscience News. Summary: A new study appears to add to the growing evidence that the immune system may play a vital role in some psychiatric disorders. Source: Johns Hopkins Medicine. In research using patient medical records, investigators from Johns Hopkins and Sheppard Pratt Health System report that people with serious mental disorders who were hospitalized for mania were more likely to be on antibiotics to treat active infections than a group of people without a mental disorder. Although the researchers caution that their study does not suggest cause and effect, they note that it does suggest that an infection, use of antibiotics or other factors that change the body’s natural collection of gut and other bacteria may individually or collectively contribute to behavioral changes in some people with mental disorders.
Yolken says his team’s study grew out of an interest in long-observed connections among infections, the microbiome and symptoms of mental illness. About this psychology research article. Gut Bacteria Have Own Circadian Clock – Neuroscience News. Summary: Researchers report our gut bacteria is sensitive to melatonin and expresses its own circadian rhythm. Source: University of Kentucky. The circadian rhythm, or circadian clock, is an internal mechanism that drives the 24-hour cycles that tell our bodies when to sleep, wake and eat — and now, new research has found that bacteria living within the gut also have a clock. “We are the directors of that clock, much like the sun directs our own circadian rhythms!” Said Jiffin Paulose, UK post-doctoral scholar and co-author of the study in PLOS ONE.
Paulose and Professor and Chair of the Department of Biology Vincent Cassone found that a certain class of bacteria found in the human gut, Enterobacter aerogenes, expresses circadian patterns because of its sensitivity to melatonin, the hormone produced at night and stimulating sleep. While melatonin is made by the pineal gland, a small gland in the brain, it is also present throughout the gastrointestinal (GI) system. University of Kentucky.