Gut Microbiome & MS
This is showing up this week in reports and journals everywhere. Here are excerpts from 3 articles today:
Beyond its role in digestion, the gut microbiome has a profound impact on health and disease; in particular, researchers have established a link between the gut microbiome and multiple sclerosis. Our gut microbiome helps to calibrate our immune systems, and a growing body of evidence suggests that disturbances in gut microbiome balance can affect the behaviour of immune cells and trigger inflammation, in turn leading to the development of MS in genetically susceptible individuals.
“Clearly,” the study reads, “even a single antibiotic treatment in healthy individuals contributes to the risk of resistance development and leads to long-lasting detrimental shifts in the gut microbiome.”
They found that the proinflammatory bacterium Methanobrevibacteriaceae was found in a higher proportion in the gut of people living with MS, whereas the Butyricimonas bacteria, which produce a compound that generally suppresses the immune system, was found to be relatively lower compared to healthy individuals.