Month: June 2019

Imagine yourself as the head of a funding agency (like the National Institute of Health) in which your job is to look at proposals for research projects and decide what projects to award funding to. Based on your readings this term, discuss a research project (or projects) that you would be most excited about funding as they relate to learning more about microbial influences on human health. As part of your response, consider what are we likely to learn from the project and how that might be important in future healthcare decisions.

Projects that I would be excited about longitudinal research projects that show how time and environmental conditions such as antibiotics affect a child’s microbiome as they age. I would be interested in research that had different subject groups such as those born vaginally, or through C-section, those who had illnesses at birth, and do longitudinal research through in home surveys as well as annual surveys sent to the home, and perhaps collecting samples such as fecal samples annually or when antibiotics or other intense treatments were administered to see how the microbiome changes through time/environmental conditions. The ideal study would include a very large and diverse sample size, so we could see trends across many individuals.

I think seeing the microbiome change through time, and seeing the responses of the microbiomes from environmental factors such as antibiotics would open a lot of doors for further research. If we saw trends among the young in responses to certain antibiotics or other medical treatments, and saw that these affected the microbiome/individual in harmful ways, it could be a leap into new considerations for treatment, and potentially a door to preventative care/information. If it was more of a study, rather than an experiment, and we could ethically watch the young as they develop without intervening, I think ethically it may be okay with parental consent… Perhaps a longitudinal study is what we need to really understand how human microbiomes change through time and to responses from the environment.

Looking back at my first writing exercise, I remember being really confused on how to answer the question of how microorganisms influence non-infectious diseases… I remember googling, and not being sure what this meant.

Now:

I know that microorganisms can influence our overall health in so many ways including non-infectious diseases such as:

Obesity

Diabetes

IBS

Ulcers

Asthma (and can also help it…)

Heart disease

Mental health issues

Allergies

Crohn’s disease

and the list goes on and on…

In my fist post, I only included a couple of diseases, and I wasn’t sure if this was even true. Now I know how there are strong correlations between our microbial communities and our overall health. So many studies have been conducted with different chronic illnesses, and we see actual differences in microbiomes of subjects with illnesses when comparing to control groups.  I think the most important topics are that understanding the link between ourselves and our microbiomes, could be the future of medicine, at least in some important ways… perhaps when seeing these correlations gain interest and more respect with more publications and more research, we may have new treatments for these illnesses, and they may be healthier treatments than ever before. Another really important topic was that our microbiomes coevolve with us. The microorganisms in our guts aren’t just a new hot topic in science, but they are literally part of us, and have been with us since the beginning of time. Another important topic is that it isn’t just our microbiomes affecting us, but that our choices and lifestyles are affecting them as well– hence the disappearing microbiota hypothesis…

I look forward to hearing more about these topics and I imagine as a future health care professional, that I’ll be educating my future patients on the wonders of the bacteria in their bodies.

Describe how microbial communities in the body could influence brain and mental health states. Then, describe how brain and mental health states could influence microbial communities in the body. In what ways might these promote health and/or disease?

The gut is known as the “second brain”, therefore there must be some links between our brain brain and our gut…

The gut has neurons and nerves that are linked to our brain, thus having the gut influence mental/brain states and vice versa.

The microbiota can signal to immune cells to release cytokines which eventually gets back to the brain. Microbes can even produce neurotransmitters and corticosteroids which can influence the brain.

The mental/brain may release neurotransmitters, steroids, and hormones that effect the microbiota perhaps via the systemic interaction between the gut and the brain.

The vagus nerve serves as a connection between the gut and the brain. For example, in a study done with mice with an in tact vagus nerve, when inoculated with certain microbes, their depression decreased– showing that microbes can have an influence on the brain/mind. When the vagus nerve was disconnected the inoculation did not have an effect.

If we were to have more studies proving these connections, perhaps we would be able to help alleviate mental health/brain disorders through microbial therapies such as probiotics… or perhaps there could even be an intervention to introduce microbes at a certain age to decrease the chances of mental health disorders.

• Can experiments detect differences that matter?

I think that this question has to do with are we researching things we already know, or are we exploring new ideas? And are these ideas even big enough to be spreading?

In the article they explained it as: With the technology we have right now, it can be hard to distinguish between differences in genes. Although we have gotten fairly good at determining genes, this is because we know the genes we are looking for prior to the experiment. Being able to determine functional differences in genes  is necessary to be able to tell between similarities and differences. Oftentimes things that seem similar can actually be quite different..

• Does the study show causation or correlation?

This is a super important question in regards to did this research explain something causing another thing, or is it just association?

If one claims that something is causation, but then there is a confounding variable that also comes into play, then is it rally causation or just correlation? It’s important to keep confounding variables in mind.

• What is the mechanism?

Explaining the causative component of correlations… Why do these things correlate? Conducting experiments to determine why certain things correlate is the background of this question.

• How much do experiments reflect reality?

It’s important to note what the subjects are like… are these sick individuals already? Are they germ free mice? It’s important to think about if the conditions were affecting the findings in a bigger population, or if perhaps the subjects in the experiment were peculiar and maybe it wouldn’t translate to the bigger picture.

• Could anything else explain the results?

It’s important to think about other reasons that may explain results. For example, weight loss can be correlated with the microbiome, but perhaps diet played a bigger factor.. The article said a good researcher is someone who thinks about these questions and includes them in their explanations.

I think the most important question when discussing controversy would be the last question: could anything else explain these results?

If the researchers address the question of whether or not their findings could be explained by other things, then this causes less controversy and less questions/attacking on the writer.

All of these questions are important to think about when reading scientific articles to make sure one is not oversimplifying the findings, and that we don’t take it as concrete evidence… All of these questions help keep us grounded while still feeding our brains new information/findings.