For some reason every time I hear the word microbiome I think of the Astrodome “the eighth wonder of the world”. I get this picture in my head of this giant round egg shape with a ton of people inside all with a common purpose of being there… They are rooting for their team to win. Lots of cheering going on and for the most part civil… Every once in while maybe a fight will break out… But I think that is primarily at soccer events… Anyway.. There is this boatload of folks in this enclosed area and only one team is going to win… Is it going to be a shut out? Does one team steamroll the other or maybe a close game going back and forth that goes well past the standard game time..
Then I think of our gut. How it is populated with two different teams both vying for the win. What happens when one team dominates? Does it matter which team has the upper hand? It’s just some tiny bacteria what difference can they make if one dominates the other? [Edit 04/11/17 additional post connecting microbiome bacteria with diseases]
We rarely think of those “things” populating our guts and will venture to say we probably think even less about what happens when one group gets out of hand. I often wonder why we are not taught things such as what these researchers from Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and the DIABIMMUNE found in their study on the connection between the microbiome and type 1 diabetes: (just to make sure you all read that right it is a number 1, not a 2, it’s not a typo, I say that because there are lots of articles about type 2 and various connections and type 1’s always are disappointed they don’t have a similar hope of finding meaningful connections)
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In one of the largest longitudinal studies of the microbiome to date, researchers from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and the DIABIMMUNE Study Group have identified a connection between changes in gut microbiota and the onset of type 1 diabetes (T1D). The study, which followed infants who were genetically predisposed to the condition, found that onset for those who developed the disease was preceded by a drop in microbial diversity – including a disproportional decrease in the number of species known to promote health in the gut. These findings, published by Cell, Host & Microbe, could help pave the way for microbial-based diagnostic and therapeutic options for those with T1D.
https://www.broadinstitute.org/news/researchers-find-link-between-microbiome-type-1-diabetes
http://www.cell.com/cell-host-microbe/abstract/S1931-3128(15)00021-9
Well. I guess that answers my question. Dare I visit PubMed for more research on the subject? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?linkname=pubmed_pubmed&from_uid=27723761
Guess I better get my yogurt maker “dome” out of the cabinet and put it to use, maybe it won’t suffer the same fate as most of the sport domes seemed to face.
*Astrodome/Reliant Stadium photo By EricEnfermero – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30810342
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