How Do Prebiotics Affect Human Intestinal Bacteria?-Assessment of Bacterial Growth with Inulin and XOS In Vitro.

Prebiotics are believed to exhibit high specificity in stimulating the growth or activity of a limited number of commensal microorganisms, thereby conferring health benefits to the host. However, the mechanism of action of prebiotics depends on multiple factors, including the composition of an individual's gut microbiota, and is therefore difficult to predict. It is known that different bacteria can utilize inulin and xylooligosaccharides (XOS), but an overview of which bacteria in the human gut may be affected is lacking.

Assessment of the Gut Microbiota during Juice Fasting with and without Inulin Supplementation: A Feasibility Study in Healthy Volunteers.

Prebiotic inulin consumption provides health benefits to the host and has also been associated with a reduction in hunger cravings. We conducted a pilot crossover study to investigate the feasibility of a juice fasting intervention with and without inulin supplementation. We also examined trends of how the microbial community in the human gut adapts to juice fasting as well as to inulin intake during juice fasting.

Eigen-Epistasis for detecting gene-gene interactions.

Background: A large amount of research has been devoted to the detection and investigation of epistatic interactions in genome-wide association studies (GWASs). Most of the literature focuses on low-order interactions between single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with significant main effects.

Results: In this paper we propose an original approach for detecting epistasis at the gene level, without systematically filtering on significant genes.

The Relationship Between Apparent Temperature and Daily Number of Live Births in Montreal.

Objectives: Temperature is a hypothesized determinant of early delivery, but seasonal and long term trends, delayed effects of temperature, and the influence of extreme cold temperatures have not yet been addressed. We aim to study the influence of apparent temperature on daily number of births, considering lag structures, seasonality and long term trends.

Methods: We used daily number of births in conjunction with apparent outdoor temperatures between 1981 and 2010 in Montreal.