There are hundreds of bacteria in our gut and a lot of them help us breakdown the food we eat so our bodies can use the nutrients. The bacteria normally found in our gut also keep bacteria that can cause disease in check. But research led by Wang Jun in China found several genes from the thousands of bacteria they found in the human gut that could be linked to chronic diseases like Crohn’s, diabetes, cancer, and obesity.
This study is only preliminary and more work needs to be done to demonstrate that there is in fact a correlation between bacteria in the gut and certain diseases.
The advantage of knowing that a particular bacterium present in the gut causes disease is that, in theory, you could stop the disease by killing that bacterium.
But it is unlikely that bacteria are the sole cause of disease and that by killing certain bacteria the person will be immediately cured. Most diseases are a combination of genetic and environmental factors. But it is possible certain bacteria may play a role in initiating disease or making it worse. If this is more clearly understood, the knowledge gained could add to the multi-faceted approach that scientists and doctors now realize is necessary in the treatment and management of many diseases.
Now that the genetics of some bacteria have been potentially linked to chronic diseases, the next step is to determine if there is a real correlation between bacteria that contain certain genes and specific diseases. Further studies will need to compare the presence of certain bacteria in the guts of patients with a disease and those without that disease to demonstrate if there is an association between the two. [Yahoo! Reuters]
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