I’ve learned this term that the microbial communities that reside in our gut are very sensitive to drastic changes such as antibiotics and diet. Something I want to learn more about is how, if hormones affect our gut microbiome. More specifically I am curious about birth control and pregnancy. Certain methods of birth control introduce large amounts of hormones to the body and I’m curious if that has any sort of long or short term effects on gut health. Birth control often has nasty side effects and I wonder if that has anything to do with the gut microbiome. When a women conceives, her hormones also change greatly. I’m curious if pregnant women and women who have had children have microbial communities that are different from the norm.
Birth control affecting gut health.
Women’s reproductive health has always been of interest to me. I believe it’s a field that is very understudied. I’ve attended a few biomedical engineering conferences. There are always so many presentations about neuro, cardio, and ortho but hardly any involving women’s reproductive health. Birth control is always preached by medical practitioners typically without hesitation. It’s dished out similarly to how antibiotics are. I’m really interested to see if anyone has dived in to see if birth control has any effects on our gut health especially since side effects can be so drastic.
I’m excited to start researching papers on this topic.
