Brainstorm a list of behaviors that an individual could engage in that could cause changes to a gut microbial community. For each behavior you list, discuss how that behavior could change the microbial community, and what potential health impacts (beneficial, detrimental, neutral) that change could be for the individual’s health.
- Increased antibiotic use can contribute to changes in gut microbiome. Development of resistance to antibiotics, the use of antibiotics heavily disrupts the ecology of the human microbiome (i.e., the collection of cells, genes, and metabolites from the bacteria, eukaryotes, and viruses that inhabit the human body). The overuse or use of antibiotic without intention which changes microbiome composition can cause health problems related to immune system, metabolic problems, disorders and infectious diseases.
- Diet can contribute to an individuals changes in gut microbial community. Excessive alcohol use in someone’s diet can change the microbial composition, and disrupts intestinal barrier which against pathogens as well as alcohol-induced liver pathology including nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), and alcoholic liver disease (ALD). An increase in alcohol consumption can be detrimental to someone’s health because it can cause development of alcoholic liver disease, and other diseases. Alcohol consumption increases gastrointestinal tract inflammation such as inflammatory of bowel disease (IBD), irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), celiac disease, and triggers tissue damage. Alcohol consumption is associated with risk of development of cancer, abnormal function of the immune system as well as risk of acute and chronic infections, and other diseases including pancreatitis, and heart disease.
- Age is another contributor to microbial communities. An infants intestinal microbial environment is less complex than the adult gastrointestinal tract. At the age of two or three, a child’s intestinal tract starts to resemble that of an adults. As an infant, they are more prone to environmental bacteria and diseases, but as they grow older they develop and grow more immune because their body develops like that of an adult. Elderly people however have been noticed to have age-related physiological changes in the GI tract that characterized by chronic low-grade inflammation which can cause a microbial imbalance in the intestine, this happens around the age of 65. It’s neutral to someone’s health because everyone ages and develops in different ways.
Sources:
Guinane CM, Cotter PD. Role of the gut microbiota in health and chronic gastrointestinal disease: understanding a hidden metabolic organ. Therapeutic advances in gastroenterology. 2013 Jul;6(4):295-308.
Langdon A, Crook N, Dantas G. 2016. The effects of antibiotics on the microbiome throughout development and alternative approaches for therapeutic modulation. Genome medicine. 8(1):39.
Engen PA, Green SJ, Voigt RM, Forsyth CB, Keshavarzian A. 2015. The Gastrointestinal microbiome: Alcohol effects on the composition of intestinal microbiota. Alcohol Res. 37(2):223-36.
