First gut bacteria may have lasting effect on ability to fight chronic diseases
Medical Xpress | September 18, 2018
New research showing that the first bacteria introduced into the gut have a lasting impact may one day allow scientists to adjust microbiomes the one-of-a-kind microbial communities that live in our gastrointestinal tracts to help ward off serious chronic diseases. Findings by U of A microbial ecologist Jens Walter and his colleagues suggest differences in our microbial makeup likely depend on when we acquire our first microorganisms after birth and the order they arrive in our gut has a lasting impact on how the microbiome looks when we grow up.