Consumption of antimicrobial manuka honey does not significantly perturb the microbiota in the hind gut of mice.

The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that consuming manuka honey, which contains antimicrobial methylglyoxal, may affect the gut microbiota. We undertook a mouse feeding study to investigate whether dietary manuka honey supplementation altered microbial numbers and their production of organic acid products from carbohydrate fermentation, which are markers of gut microbiota function. The caecum of C57BL/6 mice fed a diet supplemented with antimicrobial UMF® 20+ manuka honey at 2.

Polyunsaturated fatty acids modify expression of TGF-β in a co-culture model ultilising human colorectal cells and human peripheral blood mononuclear cells exposed to , and .

Commensal bacteria and polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) have both been shown independently to modulate immune responses. This study tested the hypothesis that the different colonic immunomodulatory responses to commensal () and pathogenic bacteria ( and ) may be modified by PUFAs. Experiments used a Transwell system combining the colorectal cell line HT29, or its mucous secreting sub-clone HT29-MTX, with peripheral blood mononuclear cells to analyse immunomodulatory signalling in response to bacteria, with and without prior treatment with arachidonic acid, eicosapentaenoic acid or docosahexaenoic acid.