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Hundreds of bacterial species live in the human gut, helping to digest food. The metabolic processes of these bacteria are not only tremendously important to human health – they are also tremendously complex. A research team at the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB) of the University of Luxembourg has taken an important step in modelling the complexity of the human gut's bacterial communities – the microbiome – on the computer. The researchers gathered all known data on the metabolism of 773 bacterial strains – more than ever before. Working from this data, they developed a computer model for each bacterial strain. This collection, known as AGORA, can now be used on the computer to simulate metabolic processes taking place in the microbes and to investigate how they affect the metabolism of other microbes and that of the human host. The LCSB team publishes its results in the scientific journal Nature Biotechnology. The collection of predictive metabolic models is available to researchers via vmh.life.
The bacterial species living in the human gut not only help to digest food, but also produce valuable vitamins and even affect the way we metabolise drugs. The metabolic processes of these bacteria are crucial to health, and are highly complex: The bacteria are in constant contact with gut cells, and the different organisms continually influence one another. Thus, they play as important a role in health as they do in numerous diseases. Despite many advances in science, knowledge of these microbes is still limited. To improve understanding and to aid novel discoveries, the research team led by LCSB scientist Prof. Dr. Ines Thiele, head of the "Molecular Systems Physiology" group, has now created the most comprehensive collection of computational models for 773 different gut microbes, capturing their individual metabolisms, called AGORA. "AGORA is based on a new concept for the comparative reconstruction of bacterial metabolic models," says Ines Thiele: "It allows the analysis of a much greater number of bacterial strains than was ever possible before. With AGORA, and by including other datasets, we can systematically study the metabolic interactions within the gut microbiome and how these interactions are influenced by external factors, including the diet and host metabolism."
Thank goodness for AGORA. Eating a bad egg-salad sandwich didn't help.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 02 2016, @07:35AM
full of that niggery goodness
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday December 02 2016, @10:17AM
This sounds like a very positive development, but unfortunately on reading TFS my gut (har har) reaction is: "So does this mean we can look forward to more "probiotic" quackery?"
While I fully accept that gut bacteria are important and there are lots of possible health benefits to tinkering with them once we get it all figured out, I find it very hard to believe that a one-size-fits all ingestion of "good bacteria" in a yoghurt is a good idea. Every person's gut is a massively complex and unique ecosystem, and airdropping billions of Lactobacillus acidophilus or whatever into that unknown territory isn't necessarily helpful. It's like saying "Wolves are an important part of the ecosystem in North America. Let's release a couple hundred of them onto the Galapagoes." The whole industry feels a lot more marketing driven than science driven, which is a shame because the potential is huge. For example, if we could master the gut biome, we may be able to cure any number of food intolerances and allergies, and who knows what else.
Of course, if anyone is more informed on this subject than I am, I look forward to being corrected / learning more.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday December 02 2016, @01:00PM
That is absolutely correct. There are basically 2 kinds of studies:
A. "$FOOD_PRODUCT is a miracle that will help you lose weight, cure cancer, and be healthy forever without having to change behavior!" This is, of course, funded by the $FOOD_PRODUCT industry.
B. "$FOOD_PRODUCT is terrible for your health, leading to cancer and other terrible illnesses regardless of any other factor!" This is, of courses, funded by the industry that most heavily competes with $FOOD_PRODUCT.
Sometimes, you'll get both of these at the same time.
Understanding what is really going on would be fantastic. But nobody does, and the various $FOOD_PRODUCT industries take full advantage of that to fund studies that benefit themselves. And since nobody who isn't connected to the food industries has enough funding to conduct a study, this kind of nonsense is all we ever get.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday December 02 2016, @07:55PM
Yogurt isn't a bad idea, especially if you're just coming off of a course of antibiotics. You should also smear some on your skin. It's not *that* useful, but it helps a bit.
OTOH, I just like yogurt, so I may be prejudiced. And I'm certainly not talking about the varieties that have sugar and other flavorings added.
All that said, including the disclaimer, you probably only need to eat about a teaspoon to get the full medicinal value. If microbes are going to find the environment compatible, they'll reproduce. But it might be reasonable to drink a glass of milk at about the same time.
P.S.: I think most probiotic things are fraudulent. I seem to recall that some were tested and didn't have any of the claimed microbes, though they had others, of course. But yogurt and cheese are different. So is natural sauerkraut, but I've never seen that for sale. So would be unpasteurized beer. For that matter, so is not-fully-cooked bread dough, though I don't recommend that you eat it. (It's not dangerous, but it did give be a bloated feeling that was uncomfortable...and the beer might do the same thing.)
Microbes are all over the place, and you can't avoid them, but resident populations do generally have an advantage, so if you're coming off a course of anti-biotics it can be wise to give a variety that you know to be harmless a helping hand. It may not do any good, but I like to eat yogurt anyway. And it seemed to reduce the tendency for the skin to itch. (Again, you don't need much, and you can wash it off with water immediately without losing any benefit. I tend to avoid soap for around an hour after this, but I don't know if it really matters. And *this* effect could be purely psychosomatic.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.