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Researchers at Tufts University have elucidated a mechanism by which the "good" bacteria that reside in our gastrointestinal tract can help protect us from inflammation, and how their disruption (dysbiosis) can increase the susceptibility of the liver to more harmful forms of disease. Their study, now available in the journal Cell Reports, identified two key metabolites produced by the bacteria in mice that modulate inflammation in the host and could ultimately reduce the severity of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
[...] People who eat a high fat diet are more susceptible to NAFLD. Replicating that diet in mice, the researchers found that within just a few weeks, their intestinal microbiota changed character significantly, with some species of bacteria increasing and others decreasing. At the same time, an inventory of metabolites in the mouse's GI tract, serum and liver showed some metabolites known to be linked to intestinal microbiota to shift compared to mice on a low-fat diet. Three of those metabolites -- tryptamine (TA), indole-3-acetate (I3A), and xanthurenic acid -- were significantly depleted in high fat diet mice.
"That's bad news for the liver," said Kyongbum Lee, Ph.D., professor of chemical and biological engineering at the School of Engineering at Tufts. "We demonstrated that two of these metabolites -- I3A and TA -- attenuate the effects of inflammation in several ways. Their depletion clears the way for disease to progress toward more serious stages."
Smitha Krishnan, Yufang Ding, Nima Saedi, Maria Choi, Gautham V. Sridharan, David H. Sherr, Martin L. Yarmush, Robert C. Alaniz, Arul Jayaraman, Kyongbum Lee. Gut Microbiota-Derived Tryptophan Metabolites Modulate Inflammatory Response in Hepatocytes and Macrophages. Cell Reports, 2018; 23 (4): 1099 DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2018.03.109
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 08 2018, @06:14PM
Eh. Give it a try. I think that you might be surprised at the results - most people are.
I'm encouraging of dietary experimentation - it is surprising how many basic nutrition facts go unquestioned. As an example, "breakfast is the most important meal of the day" is a downright lie. As another example, I am a computer programmer person and reasonably competitive gymnastically, and only need about 1300 calories/day. As another example, I recently fasted for 5 days with no meaningful ill effect, while *increasing* gymnastic performance. As another example, new studies are indicating that there is no unsafe amount of protein for consumption (https://jissn.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1550-2783-11-19).
It is becoming increasingly obvious that (a) the microbiome shapes nutrition and (b) we have no real idea how. Calories In Calories Out is fundamentally flawed, and there is reason to believe that the 2000 calorie diet is *way* too much for most people (and probably all women). Nutrition science, as a science, is really in its infancy.