Mimicking diet changes of global travel reveals clues to gut health
With the growing understanding of the importance of gut bacteria in human health, researchers at the School of Medicine studied gut motility, measuring the transit time of food moving through the gastrointestinal tract in mice in a way that mimicked the dietary effects of world travel. The study demonstrates ways to uncover how even a single ingredient, such as turmeric, can affect health through interactions of diet and gut microbes.
In very ill, probiotics don’t prevent ‘superbugs’ from settling in intestinal tract
Compared with routine medical care, probiotics administered to critically ill patients in intensive care units showed no benefit in preventing the colonization of drug-resistant microbes in the intestinal tract, according to new research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
Preemies’ gut bacteria may depend more on gestational age than environment
The population of bacteria in premature infants’ guts may depend more on the babies’ biological makeup and gestational age at birth than on environmental factors, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found. They discovered that bacterial communities assemble in a choreographed progression, with the pace of that assembly slowest in infants born most prematurely.
Deadly complication of stem cell transplants reduced in mice
Studying leukemia in mice, John F. DiPersio, MD, PhD, and his colleagues at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, have reduced a life-threatening complication of stem cell transplants, the only curative treatment when leukemia returns.