Microbiota - medical therapy

There are application in the food industry. Prebiotic fibers and probiotic organisms are added to infant nutrition to modulate microbiota. Lately there is a transition from prebiotic approach to synbiotic approach ( combining prebiotic fibers with specific microorganisms that can be stimulated by those prebiotic fibers). This is a breakthrough and it is already applied to the infant formula. Bifidobacterium and lactic acid bacteria are the ones used at the moment, with other beneficial bacteria researched for future use. There are ideas for the use of synbiotics to tackle allergies or to further support development of an healthy immune system. Many people now are fully aware of the antibiotic side effects on microbiome and they want to know more about how to modulate the microbiome in a positive health direction.

There are also applications in the animal health and food chain. There is a ban on antimicrobial promoters in some countries for a better quality. In hatcheries, for eggs and poultry, when there is no hen touch, faecal transplantation is used (dried poultry poop), just to mention one example. In the future there will be more methods to modulate and manipulate the microbiota.

And talking about faecal transplantation, there are at least 15 stool banks in the world right now, with the Openbiome in U.S.A. being the biggest. The stools can be used in treating Clostridium difficile, assisting in research for IBS and some other diseases. Only 2.5% of the potential donors are suitable after they are tested. In Netherlands for example, the stool bank has only 8 active donors and they treated 70-80 patients until now.

With this little accolade, our journey of knowledge of microbiota is finished at the moment. I hope everyone enjoyed this and you can give me ideas about other major new researches that you want to learn about.

See you soon!
G.