Microbial metabolites in health and disease: Navigating the unknown in search of function.

The gut microbiota has been implicated in the development of a number of chronic gastrointestinal and systemic diseases. These include inflammatory bowel diseases, irritable bowel syndrome, and metabolic ( obesity, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, and diabetes) and neurological diseases. The advanced understanding of host-microbe interactions has largely been due to new technologies such as 16S rRNA sequencing to identify previously unknown microbial communities and, more importantly, their functional characteristics through metagenomic sequencing and other multi-omic technologies, such as metatranscriptomics, metaproteomics, and metabolomics.

Western diets, gut dysbiosis, and metabolic diseases: Are they linked?

Obesity afflicts 36.5% of the US population and 600 million individuals world-wide. Thus, it is imperative to understand the risk factors underlying metabolic disease including diet, activity level, sleep, and genetics.

The Gut Microbiota: The Gateway to Improved Metabolism.

Obesity is an emerging global epidemic with profound challenges to world health care economies and societies. Traditional approaches to fighting obesity have not shown promise in promoting a decline in obesity prevalence. The gut microbiota is becoming widely appreciated for its role in regulating metabolism and thus represents a target for new therapies to combat obesity and associated comorbidities.

Activation of bile acid signaling improves metabolic phenotypes in high-fat diet-induced obese mice.

The metabolic benefits induced by gastric bypass, currently the most effective treatment for morbid obesity, are associated with bile acid (BA) delivery to the distal intestine. However, mechanistic insights into BA signaling in the mediation of metabolic benefits remain an area of study. The bile diversion () mouse model, in which the gallbladder is anastomosed to the distal jejunum, was used to test the specific role of BA in the regulation of glucose and lipid homeostasis.