A culturally sensitive educational intervention to improve the acceptance and sustained use of safer cooking stoves in the Guatemalan highlands.

This study introduces a culturally sensitive educational intervention to households that use open-fire cooking methods in order to improve the acceptance and sustained use of a safer cooking stove. A wood-burning stove with a closed firebox was introduced in two villages in the highlands of Guatemala. Usage rates were measured over a seven-month period after the stoves were built.

Western-style diet impedes colonization and clearance of Citrobacter rodentium.

Western-style diet (WSD), which is high in fat and low in fiber, lacks nutrients to support gut microbiota. Consequently, WSD reduces microbiota density and promotes microbiota encroachment, potentially influencing colonization resistance, immune system readiness, and thus host defense against pathogenic bacteria. Here we examined the impact of WSD on infection and colitis in response to Citrobacter rodentium.

Segmented Filamentous Bacteria Prevent and Cure Rotavirus Infection.

Rotavirus (RV) encounters intestinal epithelial cells amidst diverse microbiota, opening possibilities of microbes influencing RV infection. Although RV clearance typically requires adaptive immunity, we unintentionally generated RV-resistant immunodeficient mice, which, we hypothesized, reflected select microbes protecting against RV. Accordingly, such RV resistance was transferred by co-housing and fecal transplant.