microbiome
17 stories tagged "microbiome"
Of 28 Links Between Everyday Drinks and Mouth Bacteria, Alcohol Claimed 25
A federal study of 5,598 Americans tied alcohol, mostly beer and liquor, to 25 of 28 links between drinks and mouth bacteria. It landed months after the Dietary Guidelines dropped their daily drink limits.
Metabolic & WeightThe Molecule Behind Fecal Odor Had the Strongest Death Link in a New Blood Aging Panel
In 18,476 people, a blood clock linked smoking and fried food to an older metabolic age and exercise and mixed grains to a younger one. The molecule most tied to death is made by gut bacteria.
Infectious DiseaseBacteria Spot a Virus by the One Tool It Can't Fake, Then Self-Destruct to Save the Colony
To catch an invading virus, bacteria ignore its genes and watch for the enzyme it needs to build its shell. The moment that enzyme cuts, the cell wrecks its own membrane to spare its neighbors.
Autoimmune & InflammationA Bacterial Syringe, a Mouse Gut Lining, and Eight Months of Immune Memory
In mice, the cells lining the colon present bacterial antigens themselves, and whether a lasting memory forms tracks with where inside the cell the antigen lands rather than how much of it arrives.
Infectious DiseaseThe Gut Lining Was Supposed to Be Plumbing. A 500,000-Cell Atlas Caught It Fighting Each Microbe Differently.
Six microbes, six different reprogrammings of the intestinal lining, including a cell state that appears only during one bacterial infection and concentrates inside the lesions that bug builds.
Nutrition & FoodSugar on the Hospital Tray Tracked With Deeper Antibiotic Damage to the Gut
Among 173 transplant patients on antibiotics, each extra 100 grams of sugar went with 24 percent lower gut diversity, and the nutrition shakes hospitals often recommend appeared to do the most harm.
Brain & AgingFour Times the Odds of Losing Bowel Control: An ADHD Gut Signal Tangled Up With the Medication
Stimulants list constipation, nausea, and stomach pain among their common side effects. Most of the 23 studies pooling 1.9 million people never separated the medicated from the unmedicated, so the gut signal and the drug effect sit tangled together.
Infectious DiseaseWeathered Plastic in the Water Grows Its Own City of Drug-Resistant Bacteria
On weathered plastic drifting from a lake into a river, researchers logged 102 new antibiotic-resistance gene subtypes moving into the surrounding water in five weeks.
Autoimmune & InflammationMicrofold Cells Got Filed as the Gut's Mail Slot. They Were Organizing Its Defense.
The specialized cells that hand your gut bacteria to the immune system turn out to build the niche that keeps antimicrobial defense switched on, and the same signal that makes them wires in the brake.
Nutrition & FoodWhat Probiotics Actually Do for Autistic Kids Isn't What the Label Promises
A review pooling about 1,000 participants found the clearest probiotic effect in autistic children lands on the gut, not behavior. The supplement aisle sells the reverse.
Autoimmune & InflammationThe Gut's Doorway Cells Have a Second Job: Landlord to Its Barrier Defenders
Microfold cells were filed away as passive antigen samplers. In mice, they turn out to build and staff the niche that keeps the gut's IL-22 defenders alive, the cytokine that fortifies the intestinal barrier and keeps sampled bacteria contained inside its immune outposts.
InvestigationsFeed These Bacteria a Splash of Glycerol, and 95% of the Uranium Leaves the Water
Microbes in a flooded German uranium mine turned 95 percent of the dissolved metal into an iron compound that held together when oxygen returned, the exact failure that has always defeated standard cleanup.
Nutrition & FoodNo One Guards the Toddler Food Aisle: 81 Percent of Its Foods Are Ultra-Processed
Parents assume the baby aisle is vetted. It isn't. No US rule makes toddler food meet a nutrient standard, and an Austin audit of 2,783 products marketed for 6-to-36-month-olds found 81 percent ultra-processed and nearly half failing a WHO benchmark.
Autoimmune & InflammationThe Anti-Inflammatory Worm That Only Works If You Feed It Fiber
Feed a rat plenty of fiber and a harmless tapeworm reaches full size and quiets the immune system. Cut the fiber to Western levels and the same worm shrinks, stops reproducing, and its anti-inflammatory power switches off.
Autoimmune & InflammationThe Allergy Cell Everyone Wanted Dead Turns Out to Run Your Gut Lining and Your Metabolism
Eosinophils were the villain of asthma and allergy, the cell whole-body drugs are built to erase. A decade of tissue biology says they also seal your gut, feed your antibodies, and tune your fat, and the trials never measured any of it.
Nutrition & FoodYour Food Has 139,000 Molecules. Standard Nutrition Science Tracks About 150.
A May 2025 NEJM review pegs the chemical complexity of the human diet at more than 139,000 molecules. USDA-style databases track around 150. That gap is not a footnote, and it is why so much nutrition guidance keeps aging badly.
Nutrition & FoodThe sugar-free mice got sicker, and the press release left out what they were eating instead
A 16-week mouse study presented at ENDO 2026 reported that sugar-free animals developed insulin resistance, gut dysbiosis and fatty liver at the same body weight as controls. The press release never says what replaced the sugar, and that single missing detail decides what the study actually means.