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posted by Fnord666 on Friday November 24 2017, @11:11AM   Printer-friendly
from the what's-bugging-you? dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Spontaneous contractions of the digestive tract play an important role in almost all animals, and ensure healthy bowel functions. From simple invertebrates to humans, there are consistently similar patterns of movement, through which rhythmic contractions of the muscles facilitate the transport and mixing of the bowel contents.

These contractions, known as peristalsis, are essential for the digestive process. With various diseases of the digestive tract, such as severe inflammatory bowel diseases in humans, there are disruptions to the normal peristalsis.

To date, very little research has explored the factors underlying the control of these contractions. Now, for the first time, a research team from the Cell and Developmental Biology (Bosch AG) working group at the Zoological Institute at Kiel University (CAU) has been able to prove that the bacterial colonisation of the intestine plays an important role in controlling peristaltic functions.

The scientists published their results yesterday - derived from the example of freshwater polyps Hydra - in the latest issue of Scientific Reports.

Andrea P. Murillo-Rincón, Alexander Klimovich, Eileen Pemöller, Jan Taubenheim, Benedikt Mortzfeld, René Augustin & Thomas C.G. Bosch (2017): "Spontaneous body contractions are modulated by the microbiome of Hydra". Scientific Reports, Published on 21.11.2017, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-16191-x


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  • (Score: 2) by bradley13 on Friday November 24 2017, @01:03PM (1 child)

    by bradley13 (3053) on Friday November 24 2017, @01:03PM (#601029) Homepage Journal

    We are many, we are one. There is no "I", there is only we.

    --
    Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
  • (Score: 2) by ledow on Friday November 24 2017, @01:42PM (3 children)

    by ledow (5567) on Friday November 24 2017, @01:42PM (#601034) Homepage

    If this really a shock?

    I mean... most viruses rely on the body having a counter-reaction to them, gut-wise, in order to spread.

    And if you have what's obviously a part-hormonal, part-nervous response in your gut constantly to move and digest food, surely it's obvious that bacteria in the gut can interfere with that. Possibly even to their own advantage. The gut is a battleground of epic proportions, fortunately contained behind a mostly-impermeable barrier, with reserve-stocks of bacteria to reseed after illness (e.g. one purpose of the appendix) as they are necessary for the life of the organism with the gut.

    That they have some play over a very slow, very infrequent, chemically-dependent body reaction (i.e. almost certainly things are released by digestion which are detected by the gut walls, which provoke some kind of movement/reaction/etc. response to churn/move/reject food, and that isn't just a nerve-based response) doesn't seem that shocking to me.

    Gut bacteria are probably the least-understood and most-important part of us (despite being entirely separate lifeforms), and the thing that when you kill it off affects you most. This is why I worry about anyone who's permanently dieting, or eating sterile food, or living in a bacteria-free environment. The gut bacteria is then just isolated from the world around it, being starved and killed off, or being poisoned by chemicals designed to "kill bacteria". And you really don't want that.

    As a general rule, those people I know who "can eat anything", who rarely have health problems, and who rarely have gut problems, and who even have a better immune response generally are those who aren't sterilising their hands every two seconds, or worrying about the speck of dust on their fork. I know, I'm one of them.

    I fail to believe that it's merely correlative, rather than causative, that people who allow bacteria into the battleground of their gut have less problems for everything from passing a stool (this article would seem to back that up) to fighting off a cold. That bacteria should be perceived as somehow alien to the body really annoys me. We are co-dependent organisms, just like all the species on the planet have the same kind of relationship with something microscopic in their body - whether that's algae or gut bacteria.

    A bacteria that produces something which the body reacts upon to worm food through the gut? Just more reason to not kill off bacteria except where we know it's actually dangerous (e.g. fecal bacteria, the stuff that the body already has ejected).

    • (Score: 2) by crafoo on Friday November 24 2017, @05:29PM (1 child)

      by crafoo (6639) on Friday November 24 2017, @05:29PM (#601083)

      I don't think it's a shock, no. But it doesn't have to be shocking to be good science. We need to build the foundation. As you said, we don't know all that much (comparatively speaking) about this important system in our body. It's very complicated and inter-related with other organisms. It's good to hear work is being done in this area.

      I also agree that some people are a little to clean. I wonder about our long history and traditions with fermented foods and beverages. It's possible they are more useful to us than we really know.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 24 2017, @11:06PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 24 2017, @11:06PM (#601169)

        I also agree that some people are a little to clean.

        Fatten them, make them big to clean.

    • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday November 24 2017, @07:37PM

      by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Friday November 24 2017, @07:37PM (#601124) Journal

      I'd be one of those "eat anything" types. Always have been. I grew up in a not-very-sanitary part of NYC and had a taste for Chinese fermented foods from a young age; even today I'll deliberately search out preserved yellow radish and similar. I'm also juuuuust old enough to have spend a lot of early childhood playing in the dirt, and going to public school meant I got every virus in the city on a continuous loop.

      There is definitely something to the idea in TFA. I've been taking probiotics recently and it's helped with regularity a lot. Kefir is good for this too if you can tolerate dairy.

      --
      I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 24 2017, @03:38PM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 24 2017, @03:38PM (#601059)

    As long as food goes in and shit comes out, I'm golden.

    • (Score: 2, Funny) by redneckmother on Friday November 24 2017, @03:48PM

      by redneckmother (3597) on Friday November 24 2017, @03:48PM (#601061)

      As long as food goes in and shit comes out, I'm golden.

      Err, brown, perhaps?

      --
      Mas cerveza por favor.
    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday November 24 2017, @11:08PM (4 children)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday November 24 2017, @11:08PM (#601171) Journal

      Jaundiced, you mean.

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 1) by sonamchauhan on Saturday November 25 2017, @04:32AM (3 children)

        by sonamchauhan (6546) Subscriber Badge on Saturday November 25 2017, @04:32AM (#601245)

        Haha... This maybe truer than you realise.

        If your poo is golden, you're probably not breaking down Bilirubin. That isn't good. I think this impacts kidneys (as they must excrete it, a bile product, instead of the intestines) - it damages them and causes hypertension. If your Vitamin D level is down, it's even worse. You need a lot of light and a tan. For those interested, Google 'blue light bilirubin'. There's also a brilliant Youtube video explaining how bilirubin is processed in the body and the various syndromes when this does not occur properly.

        • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday November 25 2017, @12:22PM

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Saturday November 25 2017, @12:22PM (#601357) Journal

          This maybe truer than you realise.

          I reckon?

          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
        • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday November 25 2017, @12:24PM (1 child)

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Saturday November 25 2017, @12:24PM (#601358) Journal

          Have you tried carrots in large amount? Like sauteed or mashed instead of potatoes? Good amount of fibre.
          Except, when you go out... if you look at the product, you'll notice a striking resemblance with Trump.

          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @05:20AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @05:20AM (#601609)

            Hmmmm... No, don't recall. :)

            It may be worth having blood bilirubin and vit d level checked. I recall some proposed linkage between elevated bilirubin ( Gilbert's disease ) and beeturia. Possibly due to gut issues.

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