Recently in the news

Everyday Health, Lisa Rapaport

Eating more foods packed with flavonoids may help lower your systolic blood pressure — the “top number” that reflects the pressure blood exerts against artery walls when the heart beats — especially when you also have a greater diversity of bacteria in your gut, according to a study published in August 2021 in Hypertension. Read more

Everyday Health, Quinn Phillips

Cardiovascular disease — affecting the heart and blood vessels — is the leading cause of mortality worldwide and in the United States, where it accounts for about 1 in 4 deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many factors can increase the risk of developing heart disease, including being overweight or obese, lack of physical activity, and smoking. But there’s an important factor you may not be aware of: gut health. Read more

Science Alert, David Nield

Newly discovered microfossils some 3.42 billion years old are the oldest evidence yet of a particular type of methane-cycling microbe life – and they could help us understand how life gets started in the first place, both on Earth and further out into the Universe. Read more

Sky News

Microbes in cows’ stomachs that can break down plastic, have been discovered by scientists in Austria.

Bacteria in the cow’s stomach produces enzymes that break apart the chemical bonds in this polyester and, scientists have discovered, can break apart the bonds in synthetic polyesters too. Read more

Scientific American, Esther Ngumbi

Global soils already hold three times as much carbon as exists in the atmosphere, and there’s room for much more. According to a recent study in Nature, enhanced carbon storage in the world’s farmland soils could reduce greenhouse gas concentrations by between 50 and 80 percent. Read more

The Week, Web Desk

Why do some babies react to perceived danger more than others? According to new research from Michigan State University and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, part of the answer may be found in a surprising place: an infant’s digestive system. Read more

The Scientist, Abby Olena

“What is exciting to me about this paper is that it provides evidence, not only that there is microbial exposure in utero . . . but that it is important for education of the developing fetal immune system—especially memory T cells, which are important then for preparing the newborn to deal with additional antigenic exposures, microbial exposures, and possible infectious pathogenic exposures,” Read more

HuffPost, Natasha Hinde

His study suggests gut transit times are a more informative marker of your gut microbiome function than traditional measures used currently, such as the Bristol stool chart. (You might remember this from a trip to your GP. The poster shows you different poo types, from hard, rabbit-like rocks to runny sludge. Patients are asked to pick which one of these seven types they are.)  Read more

Cornell Chronicle, David Nutt

A Cornell-led collaboration has been awarded a five-year, $3.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to explore the ways that the gut microbiome – that mass of microorganisms inside us all – impacts bone quality. Their findings could potentially lead to the creation of a microbiome-based therapeutic for improving bone health. Read more

Wall Street Journal, Fiorella Valdesolo

A properly functioning skin microbiome, composed of bacteria known also as skin flora, is critical to skin’s health: It fortifies the skin’s barrier, trapping moisture, shielding against infection and environmental aggressors and reducing inflammation. When the microbiome is lacking in good bacteria, the skin’s barrier function is compromised. The result is what Bowe calls “leaky skin,” her riff on the term “leaky gut,”. Read more

The Evening Standard, Giullia Crouch

With her identical twin sister, Alana, she founded The Gut Stuff in 2017; an online wellness platform. If you’re already put off, don’t be. The straight-talking sisters are no Gwyneth Paltrow wannabes and their company isn’t part of the ‘eat like me, look like me’ brigade of Instagram. Instead, with the help of a wealth of experts researching this exciting new field, they’re on a mission to bring gut health to the masses. Read more. 

Glamour, Elle Turner

But re-wilding, has emerged as a novel answer to our very modern problem. It focuses on taking skin back to its roots and undoing the intervention of astringent skincare products.

Microbiome-friendly skincare brands like Esse, Aurelia, Mother Dirt and Gallinée have all innovated to create formulas that work with our skin’s natural flora – the community of billions of friendly micro-organisms and ‘good bacteria’ that make up our microbiome. Read more.