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There are choices I make every day that can have an impact on microbial communities in my body. The first is my diet, I try to eat plenty of vegetables, fruits, rice, and beans all examples of foods that can help cut down bacteria, these foods also have vitamins that are good for my body as well. I also exercise weekly to not only keep myself healthy, but to help my body fight off bacteria that can be harmful. There are some things I do that can impact my body in a negative way, each year I get the flu vaccine, which can cause bacteria to evolve into a super bacteria and infect my body in a more harmful way because the bacteria becomes immune to the vaccine. A good non-intestinal food I eat sometimes that can fight off bacteria is dark chocolate and ice cream, while it’s not always healthy, it has antibiotics that assists  probiotics in order survive in extreme pH’s of the stomach. Daily life choices can effect our bodies without even knowing, but educating ourselves can benefit us for the better.

(1)Łukasz Hołubiuk and Jacek Imiela Department of Social Nursing, Medical University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland, in their study entitled “Diet and Helicobacter pylori infection” (2016) study how dietary interventions enable a decrease in H. pylori colonization and result in a decrease in gastritis prevalence, that potentially lowering the risk of gastric adenocarcinoma development. (2) Holubiuk and Imiel supports this thesis by studying from many other research articles and tests that were associated with H. pylori and gut microbiota organisms. They provide evidence that a certain diet with vegetables, juices and oils obtained promising results from their studies assessing in vitro effect of the combined use of different substances of plant origin with established anti-H. pylori activity. (3) The purpose of this dissertation is to describe the important of diet and how it can effect H. pylori infection, and to find a more cost efficient, less adverse effect treatment than the common antibiotic cure for H. pylori. (4) Holubiuk and Imiel publish a scholarly article about H. pylori and diet building a relationship with microbiological research as well as healthcare fields.

 

Source:

Hołubiuk Ł, Imiela J. 2016. Diet and Helicobacter pylori infection. Gastroenterology Review 3:150–154.

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.

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.

“As a healthcare professional, a colleague asks your opinion as to which HPV strains should be covered in a new treatment. Based on your reading from the Sarid and Gao 2011 article.” When thinking about how to prioritize which HPV strain should be covered in a new treatment, my first thought was the severity of the strain and how high risk it is. HPV strain 16,18,31 and 45 where the most high-risk and important strains I thought should be covered in a new treatment. These four strains account for ~80% of cervical cancer, while the other ~20% of HPV strains like 39, 51, 52, 56, 58, and 59 have been classified as “probably carcinogenic to humans,” or “possibly carcinogenic.” To narrow down from the top four HPV strains, when it comes to cost, HPV 16 and 18 are the top two because there is already a vaccine for them, but to increase the percentage from 80% to 100%  the vaccine should be covered for a new treatment to improve it. HPV vaccines should be give in two dose, the first is given before a woman’s 15th birthday, the second dose is given 6 to 12 months after first dose.

When I first started reading the article, I didnt realize how many high risk strains there could be for HPV, and going further into knowing more about HPV, I didnt know how many woman die from cancer each year, let alone cervical cancer. Knowing that there is a vaccine and have gotten the vaccine, it helps to know there is lower risk of getting cancer, at least cervical cancer.

There are so many non-infectious human diseases that are influence by microorganisms. Diseases that come to mind right away are Alzheimer’s disease, stroke, diabetes, heart disease, most cancers, Parkinson’s disease, and asthma. I work at an adult foster home, so I take care a lot of elderly patients, and these types of diseases are among most of them that come to stay. I’m not absolutely positive that some of these are non-infectious disease influenced by microorganisms, if the question asked ” what are infectious diseases caused by microorganisms,” the list would have been longer and more positive. This exercise made me more curious about diseases in general, what causes them, and if there is a cure for it. If the disease is acute or chronic, or if starts out as acute and can progressively get worse as time goes on. The more I think about this question the more curious and interested I get about medicine and diseases that amongst humans.

Hello BHS 323! Looking forward to this term and excited to see what we learn! Can’t wait to read everyone’s blogs!