Internationalization
At the time of its foundation, in 2018, Microbiome Center started its service in The Netherlands. Since then, more and more doctors from other countries found us and wanted to use personalized microbiome treatment in their practice. From 2021 onward we have therefore expanded our service to other European countries. Today, the Microbiome Center service is available for doctors in six countries, including Germany, Switzerland, and Belgium. To serve all these new colleagues in our network, the ‘Kennisflits’ that we periodically send will be written in English from now on and is called ‘Insights flash’.
Summer breeze: do farts have a microbiome?
Summertime allows for some fun and therefore we asked ourselves the question if farts would have a microbiome. There is some seriousness in this question too, because it is known that microbiota transmission occurs between people living close together, yet little is known about the actual routes of transmission (1-3). Given the fact that everyone of us on average passes gas about ten times a day (4), there has been surprisingly little research into the microbial composition of farts. In fact, we could only find a single publication, which can hardly be called a study. An investigator tested whether or not he could culture bacteria from a colleagues’ farts and indeed he could (5). Given the fact that many bacteria are not culturable, it would not be surprising that farts contain many more live microbes and potentially play a role in microbial transmission.
Microbiome and fibromyalgia
Although the number and quality of studies is still relatively low, it is known that the gut microbiome and microbial metabolite profile in fibromyalgia (FM) patients is altered compared to healthy individuals (6,7). A recently published study adds some new insights to this scarcely studied topic. Researchers found alterations in levels of secondary bile acids and the abundance of bacterial species known to metabolize bile acids in FM patients compared to matched healthy controls (8). The secondary bile acid called alpha-muricholic acid was found to be five times less present in FM patients than in healthy controls and a lower level correlated with increased symptom severity of pain, fatigue, unrefreshing sleep and cognitive complaints. This insight may open up new roads to treat FM patients, e.g. using probiotic strains capable of producing alpha-muricholic acid.
References:
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-019-0409-6
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-020-1220-8
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaz3834
- https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02087912
- https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.323.7327.1449
- https://doi.org/10.1186/s12891-020-03201-9
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32116215/
- https://doi.org/10.1097/j.pain.0000000000002694