http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine have identified 26 species of bacteria in the human gut microbiota that appear to be linked to obesity and related metabolic complications. These include insulin resistance, high blood sugar levels, increased blood pressure and high cholesterol, known collectively as "the metabolic syndrome," which significantly increases an individual's risk of developing diabetes, cardiovascular disease and stroke. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-gut-bacteria-linked-obesity-metabolic.html Overweight and Obesity Wed, 15 Aug 2012 17:00:07 EST news264263246 A new clinical trial designed to study how worm eggs may relieve symptoms of ulcerative colitis (UC) will begin enrolling patients at NYU School of Medicine's Clinical and Translational Science Institute. This unusual therapy has been used in previous clinical trials on patients with inflammatory bowel diseases, but the mechanism of action is unclear. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-nyu-school-medicine-clinical-trial.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Tue, 07 Aug 2012 10:59:36 EST news263555701 The human gut is home to a teeming ecosystem of microbes that is intimately involved in both human health and disease. But while the gut microbiota is interacting with our body, they are also under constant attack from viruses. In a study published online inGenome Research, researchers have analyzed a bacterial immune system, revealing a common set of viruses associated with gut microbiota in global populations. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-gut-microbes-common-viruses-global.html Genetics Mon, 25 Jun 2012 02:50:08 EST news259811390 Gut bacteria's key role in immunity is tuned to the host species, researchers have found, suggesting that the superabundant microbes lining our digestive tract evolved with us—a tantalizing clue in the mysterious recent spike in human autoimmune disorders. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-guts-microbiome.html Medical research Thu, 21 Jun 2012 13:20:21 EST news259497397 The billions of bugs in our guts have a newfound role: regulating the immune system and related autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, according to researchers at Mayo Clinic and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-sick-stomach-bacterial-trigger-diseases.html Inflammatory disorders Mon, 11 Jun 2012 15:45:28 EST news258648279 Caesarean section delivery may double the risk of subsequent childhood obesity, finds research published online in the Archives of Disease in Childhood. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-caesarean-section-delivery-childhood-obesity.html Pediatrics Wed, 23 May 2012 18:30:01 EST news257011021 A new University of Illinois study shows that human milk oligosaccharides, or HMO, produce short-chain fatty acids that feed a beneficial microbial population in the infant gut. Not only that, the bacterial composition adjusts as the baby grows older and its needs change. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-importance-human-breast-ingredient.html Health Mon, 14 May 2012 13:58:41 EST news256222678 (HealthDay) -- Levels of certain gut bacteria and low protein intake may raise children's risk of being obese, new research suggests. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-gut-bugs-child-odds-obesity.html Health Thu, 10 May 2012 17:50:01 EST news255885088 (Medical Xpress) -- One area of human biology that is still a major mystery is the nature of the relationship between microorganisms (microbiomes) that exist in the gut and the health of the human host. Crohn's disease, for example is believed to be due to a problem with this relationship. Complicating matters is the apparent dearth of information regarding differences in microbiomes between people who live in different parts of the world; knowledge that would greatly help scientists figure out the role of different gut microbes and how they either help or hurt people. To that end, a large international group of researchers, led by Jeffrey Gordon, has been obtaining fecal samples from people in three different countries and comparing the differences in their microbiomes. They have, as they describe in their paper published in Nature, found both similarities and differences between the groups. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-massive-gut-bacteria-differences-people.html Medical research Thu, 10 May 2012 07:24:44 EST news255853463 Insulin is required for the regulation of blood sugar levels. In type I diabetes, the cells that produce insulin are destroyed by the immune system. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-04-treatment-autoimmune-diabetes.html Diabetes Mon, 09 Apr 2012 12:00:01 EST news253187398 When poet Walt Whitman wrote that we "contain multitudes," he was speaking metaphorically, but he was correct in the literal sense. Every human being carries over 100 trillion individual bacterial cells within the intestine -- ten times more cells than comprise the body itself. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-weapons-allergies-gut-bacteria-allergic.html Immunology Sun, 25 Mar 2012 13:58:58 EST news251902727 Adding prebiotic ingredients to infant formula helps colonize the newborn's gut with a stable population of beneficial bacteria, and probiotics enhance immunity in formula-fed infants, two University of Illinois studies report. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-infant-formula-ingredients-boost-babies.html Health Wed, 29 Feb 2012 17:26:40 EST news249758792 The association between the inflammatory bowel disease ulcerative colitis and a gene that makes certain cell surface proteins has been pinpointed to a variant amino acid in a crucial binding site that profoundly influences immune response to antigens, including gut bacteria, reports a team of researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, Cleveland Clinic, Carnegie Mellon University and Harvard Medical School. They published the findings today in the online version of Genes & Immunity. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-12-team-amino-acid-variation-immune.html Immunology Thu, 15 Dec 2011 11:36:32 EST news243171384 (Medical Xpress) -- Researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology have found that commensal gut flora in mice is an essential part of the immune triggering process that leads to multiple sclerosis (MS). In their paper published in Nature, the team led by Gurumoorthy Krishnamoorthy and Hartmut Wekerle write that microbial environmental factors that lead to the disease aren’t able to do their work in the absence of common gut bacteria, thus they find that such bacteria are a necessary link in the chain of events that lead to the broad spectrum neurological disease known as MS. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-neuroimmunologists-gut-bacteria-link-multiple.html Neuroscience Thu, 27 Oct 2011 08:05:11 EST news238921497 In the October 20th edition of the journal Cell Host and Microbe, Drs. Claudia Plottel and Martin J. Blaser of the Departments of Medicine and Microbiology at NYU Langone Medical Center, and the Department of Biology at New York University, present a model for understanding how cancer evolves in humans based on an understanding of the bacteria living in our body, the microbiome. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-microbiome-role-cancers.html Cancer Fri, 21 Oct 2011 09:25:31 EST news238407921 The intestinal ecosystem is even more dynamic than previously thought, according to two studies by UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers published in the latest issue of Science. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-treatments-inflammatory-bowel-disease-viral.html Inflammatory disorders Wed, 19 Oct 2011 16:13:54 EST news238259618 Statins can be effective at lowering cholesterol, but they have a perplexing tendency to work for some people and not others. Gut bacteria may be the reason. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-gut-bacteria-affect-statin-drug.html Medical research Thu, 13 Oct 2011 17:00:04 EST news237733100 Babies and toddlers with congenital heart disease are at an increased risk of having harmful toxins in their blood, particularly following surgery, according to research by a team at Imperial College London. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-children-congenital-heart-disease-toxins.html Cardiology Fri, 26 Aug 2011 10:38:55 EST news233573921 Ongoing research at the Institute of Food Research, which is strategically funded by BBSRC, is exploring the use of virus-produced proteins that destroy bacterial cells to combat potentially dangerous microbial infections. Bacteriophages produce endolysin proteins that specifically target certain bacteria, and IFR has been studying one that destroys Clostridium difficile, a common and dangerous source of hospital-acquired infections. New research is showing that it is possible to 'tune' these endolysin properties to increase their effectiveness and aid their development as a new weapon in the battle against superbugs. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-tuning-natural-antimicrobials-effectiveness-superbugs.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Mon, 22 Aug 2011 12:12:34 EST news233233927