Hannah Holschera registered dietitian and microbiome researcher, teaches classes about nutrition at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She is also the Director of the Nutrition and Human Microbiome Laboratory. At the lab on the school’s campus in Champaign, Holscher and her team analyze biological samples like blood, stool and urine, and sift through large data […]
Rejoice, irritated bowels! We’re living the halcyon days of gut health drinks. No longer the exclusive domain of crusty health food stores, gut health is serious business for a major range of big businesses and cool smaller producers all looking for a slice of the probiotic pie. Most people now know that gut health is […]
The Words I’d Been Waiting For The word “love” was not in his vocabulary. Hugs made him tense. He was critical of his children, but bragged about us to others. Near the end, I sat in his hospital room, working while he slept. I looked up to find him gazing at me, misty-eyed. “I really […]
RESEARCH BRIEFINGS 01 January 2025 During pregnancy, several organs are rewired to support the health of the mother and the offspring. A molecular signalling pathway called RANK–RANKL drives the expansion of the layer that lines the inside of the intestine during pregnancy and lactation. This tissue remodelling process has a key role in mammalian life […]
Microbes in our gut can have a profound impact on our health, but research is showing that those surrounding us in our environment—what’s known as the natural environmental microbiome—can have a big impact too. This suggests that we should all spend a lot more time interacting with nature, both outdoors and indoors. I was first […]
Nature, Published online: 11 December 2024; doi:10.1038/d41586-024-03651-4 It has been hard to find fungi that normally reside in the mouse gut. The identification of one such fungus deepens our understanding of how resident fungi drive immune responses in their natural hosts.
Nature, Published online: 06 December 2024; doi:10.1038/s41586-024-08446-1 Publisher Correction: Spatially restricted immune and microbiota-driven adaptation of the gut
It takes a huge amount of energy for human brains to grow to their current large size and be maintained over time. Our early human ancestors evolved to grow bigger brains, but the biological changes they went through to do so have been difficult for scientists to pin down. Now, new research points to our […]
People who drink at least three cups of coffee a day have different gut bacteria compared with those who rarely or never drink coffee. Paolo Manghi, then at the University of Trento in Italy, and his colleagues studied the dietary habits and genomic sequences of gut microorganisms in nearly 23,000 people in the United States […]
Enzymatic dispersion of K. pneumoniae biofilm–enhancing antibiotic and immune system efficacy, leading to curing of infection. Credit: Reshma Ramakrishnan Most of the disease-causing bacteria secrete matrix-like layers around themselves called biofilms. These biofilms act as thick barriers limiting the entry of drugs and helping the bacteria become resistant to antibiotics. Now, a team of scientists […]
