So bacteria control our health

The man is a biotope with a different life. Different groups of bacteria inhabit our skin, form a Film on the intestinal wall, in the nose and oral cavity. There, they regulate digestion, fight off intruders, but can also cause yourself diseases and ailments.

Only now is science beginning to penetrate, which bacteria spread, where, how and why in our body and how they affect our health. A large percentage of the “Human Microbiome Project”, which was founded in 2007 by the National Institutes of Health, an Agency of the US-American Ministry of health, has. Now the second part of the results appeared in the journal “Nature”.

For the project, a researcher samples collected team of more than ten years of blood and stool, took swabs, analyzed the components of the immune system and the composition of the bacteria and trying to identify patterns. Overall, the data was created so, lot of 42 terabytes.

Impact on preterm birth and intestinal diseases

For the now published part of the “Human Microbiome Project”, analyzed by the scientists, whether and how the bacteria population is altered in people with various health problems. They concentrated on three diseases:

  • pregnant women with a preterm birth,
  • People with a chronic inflammatory bowel disease and
  • People with a precursor of type 2 Diabetes.

The results are distributed to more than 20 manuscripts. They suggest that the Microbiome births, especially early, and bowel affected disease may also development of Diabetes.

Early Possible connection with Vitamin D births:

For the study of preterm births, the researchers accompanied around 1500 women during pregnancy, in total, they collected more than 200,000 specimens, including swabs of Vagina, rectum, skin, nose, and mouth, as well as blood and urine samples.

The results showed that the colonization of the Vagina during a healthy pregnancy is changing. In the case of women, the Harbor at the beginning of a larger bacterial diversity of the Microbiome in the last trimester of pregnancy, more frequently to a more homogeneous mass, in the case of the lactic acid bacteria dominated.

In women, however, have brought the child too early to the world, it remained more common until the end of the pregnancy, a larger Bakterienmix. This was also more common in women with a lower Vitamin D Level. The effect on the bacteria could potentially explain why Vitamin D deficiency increases the risk for preterm birth, the researchers write.

Bacteria from the Vagina ascend into the uterus, you can bring theories suggest that the immune system of the mother from the clock, and thus a too early delivery. It is also possible that you put enzymes and toxins-free, the cause.

Chronic intestinal inflammation, and Diabetes

For a further part of the project, the researcher escorted 132 people with chronic intestinal inflammation for a year, analyzed more than 1700 chair, more than 650 tissue and about 500 blood samples. The Tests showed that the intestinal colonization in people with chronic diseases is sometimes very unstable, and some of them changed within a few weeks. Such exchange to be for people with a healthy intestine is very rare, the researchers write.

Also in the case of the participants with pre-Diabetes, there was evidence of an influence of the sub-tenant, the connection was less clear. All of the results pave the entry into a research that arrives at some point in the patient. Still, the observations are not close, which is the factor what is due to: Contributes about the Bacteria actually to have a bowel disease? Or the disease alters the bacterial community? And what would that mean in turn?

“Like all large studies of this type, we raise more questions than we answer,” write the researchers in their conclusion. You connect your work with a Vision: In the future, millions of individual patient data from the activity of the immune system and the genes could identify the Bacteria to the metabolism of the risk for diseases such as Diabetes. Then could be against taxes, long before people feel something, or other clear signs exist.