Latest news with #gutmicrobiome
Yahoo
17-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
SpaceGut Marks World Microbiome Day with Science-Backed Solution for Malaysia's Obesity Issue
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, July 17, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- In celebration of World Microbiome Day, SpaceGut, a Malaysia-based health tech company, introduces a scientific and personalised approach to one of the country's most pressing health concerns, obesity. Through its Gut Microbiome Test Kit and AI-powered personalised meal plan, SpaceGut aims to address the root microbial imbalances that contribute to excessive weight gain and metabolic disorders. Obesity in Malaysia has become an increasingly serious public health concern. According to the National Health and Morbidity Survey (NHMS) 2023, the proportion of overweight and obese individuals has surged from 44.5% in 2011 to 54.4% in 2023. Classified by the World Health Organization as having a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 30 or above, obesity is a complex metabolic condition influenced by both genetic and environmental factors. Emerging research highlights a significant connection between obesity and imbalances in the gut microbiota, with people living with obesity often exhibiting lower bacterial diversity, higher concentrations of energy-harvesting microbes, and persistent low-grade inflammation. The SpaceGut Approach: Targeting Obesity at the Microbial Level SpaceGut combines cutting-edge science with practical application, starting with a comprehensive at-home stool test that profiles the user's gut microbiome in detail. This test identifies thousands of microbial species that influence key metabolic processes such as calorie extraction, insulin sensitivity, and inflammatory responses. The results are then processed through SpaceGut's next-generation sequencing AI technology to map the gut microbiota and use a proprietary bioinformatics database of over 50,000 samples. Based on this analysis, users receive a fully customised nutrition plan that scores over 300 foods and beverages across more than 10 categories, including fruits, vegetables, legumes, meats, seafood, and carbohydrates. Each score reflects how a specific food interacts with the user's unique microbial ecosystem, either by promoting beneficial bacteria or suppressing harmful strains. According to SpaceGut's user data, individuals classified as overweight experienced an average weight loss of 7.2 kg within just six weeks of following the AI-personalised dietary plan based on the patient's microbiome test results. By aligning nutritional recommendations with each person's gut bacteria composition, the program significantly improved hunger regulation and reduced cravings. These outcomes are likely linked to enhanced gut-brain signalling and a more balanced production of key appetite-related hormones such as leptin and ghrelin. "People with obesity often carry microbial patterns that work against their health goals. By helping them understand their microbiome and equipping them with practical, personalised food strategies, we enable sustainable weight management starting from within," remarked Datuk Tony Wong, Founder of SpaceGut. To learn more about SpaceGut's gut microbiome test and personalised nutrition programme, visit About SpaceGut SpaceGut is a pioneering healthtech company focused on transforming wellness through gut microbiome intelligence. Its flagship offering, the SpaceGut Microbiome Test, combines advanced laboratory diagnostics with proprietary, clinically validated AI to deliver personalised insights into digestive health and overall well-being. By decoding the gut microbiome, SpaceGut empowers individuals to make data-driven lifestyle and nutrition decisions that support improved digestion, immunity, mood, and long-term wellness. Backed by science and technology, SpaceGut is on a mission to make gut health accessible, personalised, and actionable. SpaceGut is expanding its ecosystem to include personalised supplement plans, expert-backed wellness guidance, and integrated nutritionist support to optimise health from the inside out. To learn more, visit or follow @space_gut on Instagram. View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE SpaceGut Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
09-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Gut Microbe Deficiency in U.S. Babies Tied to Asthma, Allergies, Autoimmune Disorders
Dirty diapers are more than a messy reality of infant care—baby poop can be an indicator of an infant's gut microbiome and future health. Scientists recently published the first two years of data from My Baby Biome, a seven-year research project that represents one of the largest and most geographically diverse U.S. infant microbiome studies to date. The findings, which came out in Communications Biology in June, are concerning: more than 75 percent of the babies in the study were deficient in key gut bacteria that are associated with a healthy microbiome. Nearly all the infants displayed deficiencies in gut microbes of some kind. These deficiencies led to a significantly increased risk of those children developing allergies, asthma or eczema, according to the study. 'Three-quarters of babies are at heightened risk of atopic conditions because of the composition of their microbiome,' says Stephanie Culler, senior author of the new study. 'That, for us, was the really big alarm.' Culler is CEO of Persephone Biosciences, a biotech company in San Diego, Calif., that runs the My Baby Biome project and funded the research. [Sign up for Today in Science, a free daily newsletter] A healthy infant gut microbiome is critical for immune development, and an abnormal microbiome puts babies at a higher risk of being diagnosed with certain autoimmune disorders such as asthma and type 1 diabetes. But a lack of robust data on infant microbiomes in the U.S. has held back researchers. Culler and her colleagues used social media and word of mouth to recruit the families of 412 infants to take part in the study. The children came from 48 states and were representative of U.S. demographic diversity. To identify the types of microbial species that were present, the team analyzed bacterial DNA in stool samples that were collected when the children were infants, and, for 150 of them, additional samples from when they were one-year-olds. They also measured other molecules in the samples that gave clues about microbial activity in the children's gut. Additionally, about half of the participating families gave follow-up information about health outcomes when the children were two years old. Based on the results, only 24 percent of infants had a healthy microbiome. The rest were deficient in Bifidobacterium—a crucial group of bacteria associated with a lower risk of a host of noncommunicable diseases. A quarter of infants lacked any detectable level of Bifidobacterium at all. In Bifidobacterium-deficient children, the researchers also detected higher levels of potentially harmful microorganisms, bacteria with antimicrobial-resistance genes and molecules that pathogens use to cause disease. As two-year-olds, those children had a three times greater risk of developing allergies, asthma or eczema compared with those with a healthy microbiome. The researchers did not find any demographic or socioeconomic trends that could explain why certain children had a deficient microbiome or went on to develop a health condition, suggesting that these outcomes could affect 'basically any baby,' Culler says. The team did find that breastfeeding was associated with a greater concentration of Bifidobacterium in children who were vaginally birthed. But the data showed that the combination of vaginal birth and breastfeeding was still not sufficient to ensure a healthy microbiome because many of these children went on to develop chronic disease, Culler says. Researchers in other countries have reported similarly alarming findings. Last year, for example, scientists in the U.K. found Bifidobacterium species in very low abundance in the gut microbiomes of around one-third of 1,288 infants they tested. Those infants' microbiome was instead dominated by Enterococcus faecalis, a species associated with antibiotic resistance and negative health outcomes. The recent U.S. study supports previous research that established the relationship between Bifidobacterium in infancy and health, says Willem de Vos, an emeritus professor of human microbiomics at the University of Helsinki, who was not involved in the new work. De Vos and his colleagues' 2024 study of 1,000 infants in Finland also suggests that Bifidobacterium species play key roles in intestinal microbiota development—and that the presence of these species is associated with positive health outcomes in children for at least five years. But the new U.S. study adds an important nuance: it revealed that a particular species of Bifidobacterium—Bifidobacterium breve—was associated with a decreased risk of disease in two-year-olds, whereas another related species, Bifidobacterium longum, did not seem to play a role in reducing that risk. These findings 'are highly interesting and important,' de Vos says. Erin Davis, a postdoctoral fellow in pediatric allergy and immunology at the University of Rochester, who was also not involved in the new work, agrees that the species-related findings are striking. 'What was unexpected was how different infant Bifidobacterium species differentially impacted relative risk of adverse health outcomes,' she says. What is driving the changes in babies' gut microbiome is unknown. But comparisons of infant microbiomes from industrialized and nonindustrialized communities, such as Old Order Mennonites, suggest that various features of modern living are likely to blame. Such factors could include the overuse of antibiotics, the oversanitization of the environment, a reduction in breastfeeding, a lack of physical contact with other babies, adult humans and animals, and more, says Matthew Olm, an assistant professor of integrative physiology at the University of Colorado Boulder, who was not involved in the new study. 'Bifidobacteriathrives on breast milk, and it's conceivable that when only 20 percent of mothers breastfed in the 1970s, it caused a population-level decrease that we're still living with today,' Olm says. 'Even though more than 80 percent of infants are breastfed today, there may just be less bifidobacteria in the environment to colonize these babies.'
Washington Post
04-07-2025
- Health
- Washington Post
Understanding your gut with 'Try This'
The gut microbiome acts as a key player in our overall health; but what exactly is it, and how does it work? In the first class in our course on the gut microbiome, host Cristina Quinn speaks with gastroenterologist Trisha Pasricha about the leading role the gut microbiome plays in our digestive health and how certain foods support its function. Read more of Pasricha's work, including eight tips to improve gut health and why probiotics can be a waste of money. For more advice, follow her on Instagram. To hear more, check out 'Try This' wherever you listen to podcasts. Now 'Try This' has a newsletter! Think of it as a supplemental guide and sign up here. Subscribe to The Washington Post or connect your subscription in Apple Podcasts.
Yahoo
26-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Is Fiber the New Protein?
It was hard to go on social media last year without yet another reminder that you need to eat more protein. Even snack foods now come with 'added protein,' making it clear that this a nutrient you need in your life. But while protein is, and always has been, a crucial part of health, there's another macronutrient of the moment that's stealing the spotlight: fiber. While protein is important for muscle growth and repair, fiber is a must-have for digestive health, gut microbiome balance and overall well-being—all of which is especially crucial in midlife. Some research even suggests that the ratio of protein to fiber in your diet may have more of an impact on the gut microbiome than fiber, alone, suggesting you don't need to choose sides. More from Flow Space 6 Expert Recommended Steps to Take Before the FDA Cracks Down on GLP-1 Drugs Fiber has always been a recommended macronutrient for good health, it's just that the hype around it has changed. Here's what's behind the buzz surrounding fiber, plus why experts are all about it. Dietary fiber is a type of carbohydrate that comes from plants, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine. It adds bulk to your diet and makes you feel fuller, faster, explains Keri Gans, RDN, a dietitian and host of The Keri Report podcast. There are two types of dietary fibers: soluble fiber, which mixes with water to create a gel that slows digestion per the U.S. National Library of Medicine. Insoluble fibers add bulk to help food and waste pass through your gut more easily. Fiber 'plays a key role in overall gut health,' Gans says. 'Soluble fiber may also help to lower cholesterol levels, contributing to heart health,' she adds. Unfortunately, most Americans don't get enough fiber in their diet; research suggests that just 5% of people consume the recommended amount daily. It's not entirely clear why fiber seems to be replacing protein as the go-to macronutrient, but there are some theories. 'Many people are becoming more aware of nutrition overall,' says Dr. Mir Ali, medical director of MemorialCare Surgical Weight Loss Center at Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, California. There's also been a big focus in the healthcare community on the importance of good nutrition, says Dr. Sherry Ross, an OB-GYN and women's health expert at Providence Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California. 'Health and medical experts are focusing on disease prevention through healthy lifestyle habits, starting with dietary choices,' she says. 'Shining a spotlight on fiber should be included on the menu, given its benefits for long-term health.' Gans says that fiber is 'definitely gaining attention' lately. 'More people are recognizing its role in supporting gut health, promoting regularity and aiding weight management, making it a key player in overall wellness,' she says. Given all the attention on protein right now—not to mention, research suggesting that a good balance of fiber and protein leads to better gut health—it only seems natural that fiber would get its time in the spotlight, too. 'Both protein and fiber are important for good health,' Ali stresses. There's a lot to love about fiber. 'Fiber may support weight management, lower the risk of heart disease and promote regularity, all of which are particularly significant during midlife when hormonal changes can affect digestion and overall health,' Gans says. One study published last year in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition also linked a high-fiber diet to bigger weight loss gains compared to people who had less of the macronutrient. Fiber may even lower the risk of chronic diseases like diabetes, as well as the risk of developing colon cancer, Ali says. Because fiber comes in plant foods, you're also getting plenty of other health-promoting nutrients when you eat fiber-rich foods, Ali points out. The current Dietary Guidelines for Americans suggest that people should aim to have 14 grams of fiber per every 1,000 calories of food. So, if you follow a 2,000-calorie diet, it's a good idea to aim for 28 grams of fiber. However, most experts suggest trying to get 25 to 30 grams of fiber per day. While most Americans fall short on those recommendations, there are plenty of opportunities to get more fiber in your life. The Dietary Guidelines flag these as some of the biggest potential sources: Ready-to-eat high-fiber cereal, 1/2 cup (14 grams of fiber) Lima beans, 1 cup (13.2 grams) Small white beans, 1/2 cup (9.3 grams) Brussels sprouts, 1 cup (6.4 grams) Popcorn, 3 cups (5.8 grams) Broccoli, 1 cup (5.2 grams) As for that protein-to-fiber ratio, it's still being explored. 'There is no ideal ratio that applies to everyone. Everyone is different,' Ali says. However, he says that the protein-to-fiber ratio is generally two to one. Meaning, you should aim to have double the amount of protein that you take in for fiber. 'If you exercise regularly or are under- or overweight, the amount may vary,' Ross says. If you're concerned about your fiber intake or want to do your best to make sure you're getting in enough protein and fiber, she recommends checking in with a dietitian. But, again, you don't need to choose sides here. 'Ultimately, choosing meals and snacks that contain both protein and fiber can help with satiety, blood sugar control and sustained energy,' Gans says. Basically, don't sleep on fiber—or protein.
Medscape
19-06-2025
- Health
- Medscape
Shaping the Microbiome to Improve Cancer Immunotherapy
WASHINGTON — For years, oncologist Jonathan Peled, MD, PhD, and his colleagues at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York City have been documenting gut microbiota disruption during allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) and its role in frequent and potentially fatal bloodstream infections (BSIs) in the first 100 days after transplant. Modulating microbiome composition to improve outcomes after allo-HSCT for hematological malignancies is a prime goal, and at the Gut Microbiota for Health (GMFH) World Summit 2025, Peled shared two new findings. In one study, his team found that sucrose can exacerbate antibiotic-induced microbiome injury in patients undergoing allo-HSCT — a finding that 'raises the question of whether our dietary recommendations [for] allo-HSCT patients are correct,' said Peled, assistant attending at MSKCC, during a session on the gut microbiome and oncology. And in another study, they found that a rationally designed probiotic formulation may help lower the incidence of bacterial BSIs. In December 2024, the probiotic formulation (SER-155, Seres Therapeutics, Inc.) was granted breakthrough therapy designation by the FDA. With immunotherapies more broadly, researchers are increasingly looking at diet and modulation of the microbiome to improve both treatment tolerance and efficacy, experts said at the meeting convened by the American Gastroenterological Association and the European Society of Neurogastroenterology and Motility. 'Cancer patients and caregivers are asking, 'What should I eat?'' said Carrie Daniel-MacDougall, PhD, MPH, a nutritional epidemiologist at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. 'They're not just focused on side effects — they want a good outcome for their treatment, and they're exploring a lot of dietary strategies [for which there] is not a lot of evidence.' Clinicians are challenged by the fact that 'we don't typically collect dietary data in clinical trials of cancer drugs,' leaving them to extrapolate from evidence-based diet guidelines for cancer prevention, Daniel-MacDougall said. But 'I think that's starting to shift,' she said, with the microbiome being increasingly recognized for its potential influences on therapeutic response and clinical trials underway looking at 'a healthy dietary pattern not just for prevention but survival.' Diet and Probiotics After allo-HSCT The patterns of microbiota disruption during allo-HSCT — a procedure that includes antibiotic administration, chemotherapy, and sometimes irradiation — are characterized by loss of diversity and the expansion of potentially pathogenic organisms, most commonly Enterococcus , said Peled. This has been demonstrated across transplantation centers. In a multicenter, international study published in 2020, the patterns of microbiota disruption and their impact on mortality were similar across MSK and other transplantation centers, with higher diversity of intestinal microbiota associated with lower mortality. Other studies have shown that Enterococcus domination alone (defined arbitrarily as > 30% of fecal microbial composition) is associated with graft vs host disease and higher mortality after allo-HSCT and that intestinal domination by Proteobacteria coincides temporally with BSIs, he said. Autologous fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) has been shown to largely restore the microbiota composition the patient had before antibiotic treatment and allo-HSCT, he said, making fecal sample banking and posttreatment FMT a potential approach for reconstituting the gut microbiome and improving outcomes. But 'lately we've been very interested in diet for modulating [harmful] patterns' in the microbiome composition, Peled said. In the new study suggesting a role for sugar avoidance, published last year as a bioRxiv preprint, Peled and his colleagues collected real-time dietary intake data (40,702 food entries) from 173 patients hospitalized for several weeks for allo-HSCT at MSK and analyzed it alongside longitudinally collected fecal samples. They used a Bayesian mixed-effects model to identify dietary components that may correlate with microbial disruption. 'What jumped out as very predictive of a low diversity fecal sample [and expansion of Enterococcus ] in the 2 days prior to collection was the interaction between antibiotics and the consumption of sweets' — foods rich in simple sugars, Peled said. The relationship between sugar and the microbiome occurred only during periods of antibiotic exposure. 'And it was particularly perplexing because the foods that fall into the 'sweets' category are foods we encourage people to eat clinically when they're not feeling well and food intake drops dramatically,' he said. This includes foods like nutritional drinks or shakes, Italian ice, gelatin dessert, and sports drinks. (In a mouse model of post-antibiotic Enterococcus expansion, Peled and his co-investigators then validated the findings and ruled out the impact of any reductions in fiber.) In addition to possibly revising dietary recommendations for patients undergoing allo-HSCT, the findings raise the question of whether avoiding sugar intake while on antibiotics, in general, is a way to mitigate antibiotic-induced dysbiosis, he said. To test the role of probiotics, Peled and colleagues collaborated with Seres Therapeutics on a phase 1b trial of an oral combination (SER-155) of 16 fermented strains 'selected rationally,' he said, for their ability to decolonize gut pathogens, improve gut barrier function (in vitro), and reduce gut inflammation and local immune activation. After a safety lead-in, patients were randomized to receive SER-155 (20) or placebo (14) three times — prior to transplant, upon neutrophil engraftment (with vancomycin 'conditioning'), and after transplant. 'The strains succeeded in grafting in the [gastrointestinal] GI tract…and some of them persisted all the way through to day 100,' Peled said. The incidence of pathogen domination was substantially lower in the probiotic recipients compared to an MSK historical control cohort, and the incidence of BSIs was significantly lower compared to the placebo arm (10% vs 43%, respectively, representing a 77% relative risk reduction), he said. Diet and Immunotherapy Response: Trials at MD Anderson One of the first trials Daniel-MacDougall launched at MD Anderson on diet and the microbiome randomized 55 patients who were obese and had a history of colorectal cancer or precancerous polyps to add a cup of beans to their usual diet or to continue their usual diet without beans. There was a crossover at 8 weeks in the 16-week BE GONE trial; stool and fasting blood were collected every 4 weeks. 'Beans are a prebiotic super-house in my opinion, and they're also something this population would avoid,' said Daniel-MacDougall, associate professor in the department of epidemiology at MD Anderson and faculty director of the Bionutrition Research Core and Research Kitchen. 'We saw a modest increase in alpha diversity [in the intervention group] and similar trends with microbiota-derived metabolites' that regressed when patients returned to their usual diet, she said. The researchers also documented decreases in proteomic biomarkers of intestinal and systemic immune and inflammatory response. The impact of diet on cancer survival was shown in subsequent research, including an observational study published in Science in 2021 of patients with melanoma receiving immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) treatment. 'Patients who consumed insufficient dietary fiber at the start of therapy tended to do worse [than those reporting sufficient fiber intake],' with significantly lower progression-free survival, Daniel-MacDougall said. 'And interestingly, when we looked at dietary fiber [with and without] probiotic use, patients who had sufficient fiber but did not take probiotics did the best,' she said. [The probiotics were not endorsed or selected by their physicians.] Now, the researchers at MD Anderson are moving into 'precision nutrition' research, Daniel-MacDougall said, with a phase 2 randomized, double-blind trial of high dietary fiber intake (a target of 50 g/d from whole foods) vs a healthy control diet (20 g/d of fiber) in patients with melanoma receiving ICB. The study, which is underway, is a fully controlled feeding study, with all meals and snacks provided by MD Anderson and macronutrients controlled. Researchers are collecting blood, stool, and tumor tissue (if available) to answer questions about the microbiome, changes in systemic and tissue immunity, disease response and immunotherapy toxicity, and other issues.
