Gut Feeling.

              Research conducted by UCLA scientist has revealed that diet affects the microbes in human guts which in turn affects how humans feel emotionally. There was little evidence at first to prove the hypothesis, “You are what you eat.” This new study consisted of 36 women, a third of them were on a diet with lots of yogurt and probiotics. Another third of them ate a substance that looked like yogurt but did not have probiotics. The other third did not consume any probiotics at all. The women received MRIs before and after the four week trial. The MRI was used to scan their brain function; when they were relaxed and when they were put under emotional stress. The scientists wanted to see if diet affected brain function.

                The data showed that the women who ate the yogurt that contained probiotics had a decrease in function in the insula (which processes the internal bodily sensations) and in the somatosensory cortex. These women also had a decrease in the engagement in the certain parts of the brain: emotion, cognition, and sensory areas. The other women who were in the other two dietary categories showed an increase or were stable in all the same areas.

                It was surprising to the scientists that there was such a range in the data. They expected to see change in the emotional part of the brain but not in the sensory or cognition. This new discovery will lead to more research aimed at finding new strategies to prevent digestive, neurological, and mental illnesses.

                Microbes never cease to amaze me, they do so much in our bodies and we still know very little about them. This research could lead to amazing treatments; imagine someone being cured of Alzheimer’s by simply changing their diet and gut flora. 

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130528180900.htm

Antibiotics have seemed to save our lives against deadly diseases, but are they now ruining our chances to fight off resistant microbes? This article written by Arjun Srinivasan talks about the effects of over usage of antibiotics. Scientists have known that antibiotics would someday stop working because bacteria and other microbes share their DNA and are able to resist antibiotics. Medical researchers want to save lives and reduce the cost of medicinal treatments. It will take many years to develop a new drug or antibiotic that will be one step ahead of the resistant microbes.

For now scientists from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have come to the conclusion that medical personal need to limit their “handing out” of antibiotics. In the past antibiotics were prescribed to almost anyone with any symptoms of an illness. It is now proven that over prescribing antibiotics has contributed to the resistant strains of bacteria and other microorganisms.

                There is need for improvement according to the CDC, “One in three prescriptions written for the drug vancomycin included a potential error, such as prescribing without proper evaluation.” There is not much room for errors because antibiotics have led to a huge increase of antibiotic resistant microbes. The new improvements are called antibiotic stewardship; it will help save lives and preserve antibiotics. These stewardship programs will ensure that patients are accurately diagnosed, are given the correct antibiotic, given the right dosage, and for the correct duration time. This will help to limit the microbes from becoming stronger faster. It should also help with medical costs and waste.

                Microbes work fast and are smart, they have become resistant to every antibiotic drug that is on the market. Even when new drugs arise, it will not take them long to figure out how to avoid destruction. The CDC and the new stewardship programs will help to control the spread of resistant microbes. It will also help people with illnesses recover. 

 

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-we-stop-the-end-of-effective-antibiotics/

Trypanosoma brucei gambiense belong to the protozoa they cause the African sleeping sickness. They are usually found in tsetse flies. They infect the human blood and cause headaches, disturbance with the sleep cycle, swelling of the brain. It can eventually lead to death if it is not treated properly.

Scientists have recently been able to track tsetse flies that are carrying the genome trypanosome and watch the protozoa cells mate. Scientists dyed the cells with two different fluorescent colors green and red. They used the dyes to see what the cells were doing, they wrapped their flagella together to bring the cells closer together. In the past it was thought that the cells simply divide in order to reproduce. Now scientists are arguing that they also swap genes while they are reproducing. Swapping genes allows them to make their DNA stronger and create new strains of the disease. Some of these strains can resist certain antibiotics and are harder to treat.

This new research will help scientists understand the Trypanosoma brucei gambiense cells better and will help them to create stronger antibiotics. This research can also help in other areas of medicine because there might be more pathogens that use sex to swap genes. Scientists will be able to treat diseases easier and faster when they know how strong a pathogen will be.

I think this research can be very useful because it is hard to track pathogens. This will allow us to better understand their reproducing methods. We will be able to defeat them easier and keep ourselves healthier. Microbial biology is a relatively new science and it has taken us a few years to discover that we live symbiotically with many microbes. It will take us a few years to fully appreciate this science and what the tiny microorganisms can do for us.   

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140103204500.htm