Gastroenterology - September 2013 Archives

A Mayo Clinic researcher, along with his collaborators, has shown that an individual’s genomic makeup and diet interact to determine which microbes exist and how they act in the host intestine.The study was modeled in germ-free knockout mice to mimic a genetic condition that affects 1 in 5 humans and increases the risk for digestive diseases. Mayo Clinic gastroenterologist and first author of the study Purna Kashyap, M.B.B.S., says, “Our data show that factors in the differences in a host’s genetic makeup — in this case genes that affect carbohydrates in the gut — interact with the type of food eaten. That combination determines the composition and function of resident microbes.” Dr. Kashyap is also a collaborator in the Microbiome Program of the Mayo Clinic Center for Individualized Medicine. Changes in microbial membership or function as demonstrated in this study may, in turn, foster a “digestive landscape” that can promote inflammatory conditions such as Crohn’s disease.The findings appear in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Read news release.

A simple treatment that involves transplanting healthy feces into a patient suffering from a debilitating and sometimes deadly infection of the colon called Clostridium difficile, or C. diff, is continuing to show significant promise. Called a fecal transplant, the stool of a healthy patient is directly transplanted into the colon of a C. diff patient to replenish the normal bacteria in the colon. Researchers at Mayo Clinic in Arizona reported their findings in the August 2013 edition of Mayo Clinic Proceedings. Read news release. Journalists: Sound bites with gastroenterologist John DiBaise, M.D., and patient Diane Seegers are available in the downloads.  http://youtu.be/ub0zFn-iVBU