Prebiotics:

• Polysaccharides from Aloe vera may boost the growth of beneficial gut bacteria such as Bifidobacterium spp. and Lactobacillus spp., says a new study from Chile that supports the prebiotic potential of the compounds. [src]

Disease

• “An international team of researchers has found evidence that suggests certain types of oral bacteria may cause or exacerbate bowel disorders. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes testing the impact of introducing bacteria found in the mouths of humans to mice models.” [src]
  • “In the first experiment, the researchers introduced human saliva from people with Crohn’s disease into the guts of mice with a sterilized gut microbiome. Doing so, they found, led to gut inflammation in some cases. A closer look revealed the bacteria responsible for the inflammation was Klebsiella pneumoniae, “
• Analyses in mice suggest that dietary salt increases blood pressure partly by affecting some of the microbes that inhabit the gut. The implications of this work for hypertension warrant further study in humans [src]
  • “High salt may additionally drive autoimmunity by inducing T helper 17 (TH17) cells, which can also contribute to hypertension. Induction of TH17 cells depends on gut microbiota; however, the effect of salt on the gut microbiome is unknown. Here we show that high salt intake affects the gut microbiome in mice, particularly by depleting Lactobacillus murinus. Consequently, treatment of mice with L. murinus prevented salt-induced aggravation of actively induced experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis and salt-sensitive hypertension by modulating TH17 cells. In line with these findings, a moderate high-salt challenge in a pilot study in humans reduced intestinal survival of Lactobacillus spp., increased TH17 cells and increased blood pressure. Our results connect high salt intake to the gut–immune axis and highlight the gut microbiome as a potential therapeutic target to counteract salt-sensitive conditions.”
• “They compared mice with different variants of the APOE gene, which is strongly linked to Alzheimer’s risk in people. Once again, the researchers found distinct differences in the microbial profiles of the mouse strains, suggesting that “gut microbiome is associated with APOE genotype,” at least in this particular mouse model, ” [src]
• “Recent studies into the microbiome have provided support to the concept that altered gut flora could promote the development and maintenance of symptoms in IBS.(1)<https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4734998/> It has been reported that IBS subjects have a lower diversity of gut microbiota compared to healthy controls.(2)<https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4202342/> A seven week study of healthy subjects found that those who experienced abdominal pain had significantly less of the beneficial bacteria Bifidobacterium compared to those without pain.(3)<http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0023035>
• Gut bacteria may be responsible for age-related inflammation, mouse study suggests. Young mice developed low-grade chronic inflammation after receiving gut bacteria transplanted from old mice, reported a new study in Frontiers in Immunology [Src]
• A new study highlights the link between sleep habits, gut microbiome composition and cognitive flexibility in healthy older adults, but could probiotics benefit sleep-related cognitive issues? [src]
• “Molecular biologists from Stellenbosch University analysed microbial DNA that they extracted from stool samples of people with PTSD and those who experienced trauma but haven’t developed the disorder. They found that individuals with PTSD had lower levels of three specific gut bacteria.The bacteria, called Actinobacteria, Lentisphaerae and Verrucomicrobia, support the functioning of the immune system. ” [src]
• “The results revealed that the bacterial compositions of the pancrelipase-treated mice were significantly different from those of the control samples. Akkermansia muciniphila, a key beneficial bacterium in the intestinal tract, showed a higher relative abundance in the pancrelipase-treated samples than in the control samples. Lactobacillus reuteri, a widely used probiotic bacterium known to relieve intestinal inflammation, also showed a higher relative abundance in the pancrelipase-treated samples. ” [src]
• “<p>When the subjects were divided by their level of intestinal bacteria, it was found that people with a high proportion of Prevotella  bacteria in relation to Bacteroides bacteria lost 3.5 kg more in 26 weeks when they ate a diet composed by the New Nordic Diet principles compared to those consuming an Average Danish Diet. [src]
  • “Probiotic supplementation with various strains of Lactobacillus have been shown to induce a small but statistically significant weight loss in the obese and overweight, according to a new review and meta-analysis.” [src]

Probiotics

• “Lactobacillus reuteri suppresses inflammation-associated colon carcinogenesis in mice by histamine production “[Src]