The other brain - a new book that i just finished (with special thanks to the lock-down)

And it is done, after almost one year and a half. I try to make it short and not very complicated, and i hope you will enjoy reading it. My book about the gut microbiome, our microbial intestinal flora. At the moment, as i just launched the book, you can have it at a discounted price.
Here is the link for:

Ebook

Paperback

''I will start the first chapter, talking about our microbiome, or in layman terms, our gut intestinal flora, the microbes living inside of us and how they are actively helping us. It is an interesting subject, and the latest researches seem to just start to discover how important our relation with our non-pathogenic bacteria and microbes is. These days we keep hearing different opinions about this elusive thing called microbiome. What is that and how it can help us? You are in the right place to find out about it, in the next chapters of this book.''

What it is about?

Here are the contents of every chapter:
1 Introduction
2 History and discovery
3 The life cycle of the gut microbiota
4 Food for thought
5 Is every gut microbiota unique?
6 Malnutrition and microbiota
7 Prebiotics, probiotics and synbiotics
8 Inflammatory bowel diseases
9 Microbial diversity and their importance
10 Anatomical correlations with the gut microbiota

I really hope that you will find time to read it and learn a bit more about the latest researches related to health, microbiota and longevity.
Have a good day!
G.

The question of the day

As the focus moved from us to them, we are no longer ask who is gonna watch the watchers. What we ask now is who is gonna take care of the carers, if they will get sick?

This reminds me of Rumi

The Call
by Oriah Mountain Dreamer


I have heard it all my life,

A voice calling a name I recognized as my own.

Sometimes it comes as a soft-bellied whisper.
Sometimes it holds an edge of urgency.
But always it says: Wake up, my love. You are walking asleep.
There’s no safety in that!

Remember what you are, and let a deeper knowing
color the shape of your humanness.
There is nowhere to go. What you are looking for is right here.
Open the fist clenched in wanting and see what you already hold in your hand.
There is no waiting for something to happen,
no point in the future to get to.

All you have ever longed for is here in this moment, right now.
You are wearing yourself out with all this searching.
Come home and rest.
How much longer can you live like this?

Your hungry spirit is gaunt, your heart stumbles. All this trying.
Give it up!
Let yourself be one of the God-mad,
faithful only to the Beauty you are.
Let the Lover pull you to your feet and hold you close,
dancing even when fear urges you to sit this one out.

Remember, there is one word you are here to say with your whole being.
When it finds you, give your life to it. Don’t be tight-lipped and stingy.
Spend yourself completely on the saying,
Be one word in this great love poem we are writing together.

Training at home

I see many athletes and people who usually go to gym complaining about their losses (muscle, strength etc). Which seems to be unpleasant, but given my average training intensity, i could always train better and more intensive at home than in a gym.

At the moment i am training 4 days a week, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, with weekend allocated for recovery.

This is for example my today training, step by step:

Dynamic warmup

30 skipping jumps
20 jumping jacks
10 squats
10 heels raises right and 10 left
10 hip raises
10 windmill forward and 10 backward

Skill progression

5 pikes
5 jumps

Full body training

6 series of
10 mountain climbers
10 jumping jacks
5 crunches
with 30 sec rest in between. 

Core and glutes training

4 series of
10 superman
10 leg wipers
7 single leg hip raises right and 7 left
with 60 sec rest in between

10 plank switches in the end

and cooldown stretching

30 sec standing side stretch left and then 30 sec right
60 sec deep squat hold
30 sec hip stretch left and then 30 sec right
30 sec lunge stretch left and then 30 sec right

On the Intensity scale this is 3 out of 10 (as i just try to build some strength and stamina at the moment. I hope this can inspire you to try something similar at home.

See you soon and wish you well

G.

Coronavirus self-isolation

I have always wondered how retirement early could feel, in terms of doing different things and having all the time in the world. Apparently, my wish was granted, under stranger than life circumstances. I was sent home for 12 weeks, and i am being paid, so this can be like a test for my future early retirement plans.

The conditions are not optimal, the market seems to sink faster than Titanic, but i have 3 months to fill up. We will see what is next.

The link for my journal is here.

And if you, like me, hate the fact that the gym is closed, this is my alternative for training at home (link). The website is quite good, and they also got phone apps for weight training, training at home, running and nutrition. I started 64 months ago to train with them, and they keep improving.

See you soon.
G.

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.

Microbiota - Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD)

IBD is a group of conditions in which the colon and/or the small intestine becomes inflamed. Crohn's disease and ulcerative diseases are the two main types of Inflammatory Bowel Disease. In Crohn's disease both small and large intestine are affected, and in some rare cases even the mouth, oesophagus and the stomach. In ulcerative colitis only the large intestine and the rectum are affected. 

IBD is a chronic disease with two different states, a high active state of the disease called active inflammation and an inactive state called remission. In the active state the inflammation is accompanied by unpaired barrier function, so the defense mechanism is not properly working. 

Are there any ways for our body to keep the intestinal barrier function as good as possible? First, a layer of epithelial cells connected by tight junctions, covered with a mucus layer to protect the mucosal surface from harmful bacteria and molecules. Second, on top of this layer, we got the gut microbiota that is covering the mucus layer with the good, inoffensive microbes. 

IBD is emerging as a worldwide epidemic, especially in the high income countries, making researchers to think that all these diseases are mainly caused by the environment. The lifestyle in developed countries might impair the microbial colonization. There are multiple factors involver: birth at hospital, with or without caesarean delivery, decreased family sizes, decreased contact with soil organisms, increased antibiotic use, body washing with antibacterial soap and shower gel, increased use of processed foods. The gut microbiota plays a big role in priming and regulating the immune system. In IBD the microbiota changes in composition, being an essential factor driving the inflammation. Markers of IBD can be found in the microbiota, such as reduction of microbial diversity and increase in gammaproteobacteria (this group holds many potential pathogens). 

Gammaproteobacteria

Adherent-invasive microbes like E.Coli and Fusiobacterium can be found, combined with a decrease of beneficial ones (Bifidobacterium, Lactobacillus and F. prausnitzii). All these signs can be used to diagnose the disease. These changes can affect the microbiota as a whole, decreasing the short chain fatty acids like Butyrate, increasing the oxidative stress, causing imbalance between reactive oxygen species and antioxidant defences, causing tissue damage.

Attempts to restore microbiota composition using microbiota based therapies showed positive and promising results, causing remission in IBD, but each patient response is different, and faecal microbiota transplant methods are not superior to the current therapies. But microbiota based therapies can be used in the future to treat and diagnose IBD.

Next post will be the last post of the microbiota series, and it iwll be about the medical therapy.