An Oct 2021 paper in BMJ Nutrition Prevention and Health explored the relationship between fruit and vegetable intake and mental wellbeing in school children[i]. This timely research, bearing in mind the progressive increase in childhood mental health problems, highlighted the direct association between fruit and vegetables consumed over breakfast and lunch and their related impact on mental wellbeing.

 The high-fat, low-fibre diets consumed in the western world are failing to support a diverse and healthy #gut #microbiome. Dietary #fibre is known to help prevent #cardiovascular disease, type 2 #diabetes and #obesity through its effects on the #microbiota. However, the gut microbiome is incredibly complex with dietary responses modulated by multiple hereditary and non-hereditary factors, and so harnessing a diet with the desired effect is not an easy task.  Scientists from the Centre for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, have had work recently published in Nature that sought to investigate the dynamic relationship between the modern diet and the guts microorganisms.

Researchers from Cambridge have recently published a study indicating that #artificial #sweeteners, synthetic sugar substitutes that are often consumed in the diet, could be causing healthy #gut #bacteria to damage the #intestine. The study, published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences, found that three of the most commonly used artificial sweeteners, #saccharin, #sucralose and #aspartame, can cause beneficial bacteria in the intestines such as #E.coli and #E.faecalis, to become disease causing, or pathogenic.

In recent years, the #microbiota has been linked to many aspects of human health, but until now its impact on the #immune system has only been assumed because of data from animal studies. Scientists from Memorial Sloan Kettering have now, for the first time, shown that the #gut #microbiome directly shapes the makeup of the human immune system, with the results of their study published in Nature.

We all know that lack of #sleep can leave us with feelings of lethargy and in a bad mood, but if this becomes prolonged it can be to the detriment of our overall physical health.  Continuous lack of sleep can put you at risk of serious illness including #obesity, #heart disease and #diabetes, all impacting upon life expectancy. New research from the University of Missouri has now shown that lack of sleep is also altering our #gut #microbiome and may be promoting the aforementioned morbidities.

The foods we eat commonly affect our #gut #microbiota by triggering the production of #bacteriophage, which are the viruses that infect and replicate inside #bacteria. The #microbiome is made up of hundreds of different bacteria and the #phages they host. Researchers from San Diego State University have discovered a new way to harness food as medicine by identifying common dietary compounds that can kill specific bacteria without affecting others.

The department of Immunology from the University of Toronto have recently completed research into the origins and causes behind inflammation of the heart (#myocarditis). Whilst many other studies have been conducted, resulting in a variety of theories, there has not yet been a conclusive definition of how risk factors and environmental exposures intersect. The Toronto team have shown in their results that genetic predisposition, production of a commensal #gut #microbial #autoantigen, and systemic #inflammation combine to trigger the generation of autoreactive CD4+ T cells that cause autoimmune myocarditis and #cardiac dysfunction.

Many theories have been developed to explain why animals exhibit certain social behaviours, the impact of the #microbiota, however, has rarely been considered.  In a review published in Science Mag this month, scientists have examined several pre-clinical and clinical trials investigating the effect of the microbiota on the social brain. It has been discovered that through a diverse set of pathways the gastrointestinal microbiota is able to send signals to the brain, this is known as the #microbiota-gut-brain axis. The microbiota plays a key role in neurodevelopment from early life into adulthood influencing processes such as #neurotransmission and #neuroinflammation as well as behaviour throughout lifespan. With animals having evolved in a microbial world, these signals may have influenced the animal brain throughout evolution.

There have been various studies investigating the impact on the #microbiome of different kinds of diets, such as vegetarian versus meat based, but as yet none to question whether the cooking process itself alters the composition of the microbial ecosystems in our guts. Cooking involves exposing food to heat which can change the foods chemical and physical properties. Researchers from the University of California and Harvard University have set out to answer whether these alterations change the microbial environment of the #gut.

Scientists have discovered that some individuals harbour a #bacterium in their #gut that produces enough #alcohol to damage their #liver even without having drunk any alcohol. The link between the gut and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (#NAFLD) was established when Drs were treating a patient who presented with severe non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (#NASH) and auto-brewery syndrome (#ABS), where an individual can become #drunk after eating sugary foods. This was despite consuming an alcohol-free diet. The individual had an ultra-high blood alcohol concentration (#BAC) which was found to have happened as a result of bacteria. The patient did recover after dietary changes and antibiotic treatment.