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Large study shows regular millet consumption can combat anemia

International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, October 20, 2021

A new study has shown that regular consumption of millets can improve hemoglobin and serum ferritin levels to reduce iron deficiency anemia, which is rising globally. The recently published research, a meta-analysis of 22 studies on humans and eight laboratory studies on millets consumption and anemia, was undertaken by seven organizations across four countries and was led by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT).

“The study concluded that millets can provide all or most of the daily dietary iron requirements of an average person. Although the amount of iron provided depends on the millet variety and its form of processing, the research clearly shows that millets can play a promising role in preventing and reducing high levels of iron deficiency anemia,” highlighted Dr S Anitha, the study’s lead author and Senior Nutritionist at ICRISAT.

The researchers found that millets increased hemoglobin levels by as much as 13.2%. Four studies in the review also showed serum ferritin increasing by an average of 54.7%. Ferritin is an iron containing protein in the blood and is a clinical marker for iron deficiency.

The studies in the analysis involved nearly 1,000 children, adolescents and adults, and six different millet types – finger millet, pearl millet, sorghum and a mixture of kodo, foxtail and little millets. The participants in the studies were found to have consumed millets for anywhere between 21 days and 4.5 years. The findings were published on 14 October in Frontiers in Nutrition.

“1.74 billion people were anemic in 2019. That number is rising,” said Dr Jacqueline Hughes, Director General, ICRISAT. “It has been proven that iron deficiency anemia affects cognitive and physical development in children and reduces productivity in adults. The need for a solution is critical, and therefore bringing millets into mainstream and government programs is highly recommended.”

“Now that there is strong evidence of the value of millets in reducing or preventing iron deficiency anemia, it is recommended that one major research study be undertaken onanemia covering all the different types of millet, common varieties and all major forms of processing and cooking, using a uniform testing methodology. This will provide the detail required for designing interventions needed to have a major impact on reducing anemia globally,” said Professor Ian Givens, a co-author of the study and Director at University of Reading’s Institute of Food, Nutrition and Health (IFNH) in the UK.

“It has often been claimed that iron in millets is not highly bioavailable due to the supposed high levels of antinutrients. Our analysis proves this is a myth. Instead, millets were found to be comparable to typical iron bioavailability percentages for plants. Also, the levels of antinutrients in millets were identified to be similar or lower than common staples,” said Ms. Joanna Kane-Potaka, former Assistant Director General, ICRISAT, and Executive Director of the Smart Food initiative who is a co-author of the study.

The research also showed that processing can significantly increase the amount of iron bioavailable. For example, millet snacks made by expansion (extrusion) increased bioavailable iron 5.4 times, while fermentation, popping and malting more than tripled the iron bioavailable. Germination (sprouting) and decortication (dehulling) more than doubled the bioavailable iron.

Resveratrol can help correct hormone imbalance in women with PCOS

University of California, San Diego, October 19, 2021

Resveratrol–a natural compound found in red wine and grapes–can help address a hormone imbalance in women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), a leading cause of infertility in women, according to a new study published in the Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

An estimated 5 million to 6 million women in the United States have PCOS, according to the Hormone Health Network. It is one of the most common endocrine conditions in women of childbearing age.

Women who have PCOS produce slightly higher amounts of testosterone and other androgen hormones than average. Although these reproductive hormones are typically associated with men, women also have small amounts. The elevated levels in women with PCOS can contribute to irregular or absent menstrual periods, infertility, weight gain, acne or excess hair on the face and body. Women who have PCOS also face a higher risk of developing other health problems, such as diabetes.

Resveratrol is one of a group of plant compounds known as polyphenols. In addition to red wine and grapes, resveratrol is found in nuts. The compound has anti-inflammatory properties.

“Our study is the first clinical trial to find resveratrol significantly lowers PCOS patients’ levels of testosterone as well as dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS), another hormone that the body can convert into testosterone,” said the study’s senior author, Antoni J. Duleba, MD, of the University of California, San Diego in La Jolla, CA. “This nutritional supplement can help moderate the hormone imbalance that is one of the central features of PCOS.”

Thirty women with PCOS completed the randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial conducted at Poznan University of Medical Sciences in Poznan, Poland. The women were randomly assigned to either take a resveratrol supplement or a placebo pill daily for three months. The participants had blood samples drawn at the beginning and end of the study to determine levels of testosterone and other androgen hormones. The women also underwent an oral glucose tolerance test at the start and conclusion of the study to measure diabetes risk factors.

The researchers found total testosterone levels fell by 23.1 percent among the women who received the resveratrol supplement. In comparison, testosterone levels increased 2.9 percent in the placebo group. DHEAS declined by 22.2 percent in the resveratrol group, while the placebo group experienced a 10.5 percent increase in DHEAS levels.

In addition to moderating androgen hormones, the women who received resveratrol showed improvement in diabetes risk factors. Among the resveratrol group, fasting insulin levels dropped by 31.8 percent during the three-month study. The researchers also found the women who received resveratrol during the study became more responsive to the hormone insulin over the course of the study.

“The findings suggest resveratrol can improve the body’s ability to use insulin and potentially lower the risk of developing diabetes,” Duleba said. “The supplement may be able to help reduce the risk of metabolic problems common in women with PCOS.”

Study: After two hours, sunscreen that includes zinc oxide loses effectiveness, becomes toxic

Oregon State University, October 14, 2021

Sunscreen that includes zinc oxide, a common ingredient, loses much of its effectiveness and becomes toxic after two hours of exposure to ultraviolet radiation, according to a collaboration that included Oregon State University scientists.

The toxicity analysis involved zebrafish, which share a remarkable similarity to humans at the molecular, genetic and cellular levels, meaning many zebrafish studies are immediately relevant to people.

Findings were published today in Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences.

The research team, which included College of Agriculture Sciences faculty Robyn Tanguay and Lisa Truong and graduate fellow Claudia Santillan, sought to answer important but largely neglected questions regarding the massive global sunscreen market, predicted by market data firm Statista to be worth more than $24 billion by the end of the decade.

The questions: How stable, safe, and effective are sunscreen ingredients in combination rather than as individual compounds – which is how they are considered for Food and Drug Administration approval – and what about the safety of any chemical products that result from reactions caused by exposure to sunlight?

“Sunscreens are important consumer products that help to reduce UV exposures and thus skin cancer, but we do not know if the use of some sunscreen formulations may have unintended toxicity because of interactions between some ingredients and UV light,” said Tanguay, an OSU distinguished professor and an international expert in toxicology.

What the public thinks about sunscreen safety has caused manufacturers, often based on limited data, to use lots of some ingredients while limiting others, she said. For example, oxybenzone has effectively been discontinued because of concerns that it harms coral reefs.

“And sunscreens containing inorganic compounds like zinc oxide or titanium dioxide, that block UV rays, are being marketed more and more heavily as safe alternatives to the organic small-molecule compounds that absorb the rays,” Tanguay said.

Scientists including the University of Oregon’s James Hutchinson and Aurora Ginzburg and the University of Leeds’ Richard Blackburn made five mixtures containing the UV filters – the active ingredients in sunscreens – from different products available in the United States and Europe. They also made additional mixtures with the same ingredients, plus zinc oxide at the lower end of the commercially recommended amount.

The researchers then exposed the mixtures to ultraviolet radiation for two hours and used spectroscopy to check their photostability – i.e., what did sunlight do to the compounds in the mixtures and their UV-protective capabilities?

The scientists also looked at whether the UV radiation had caused any of the mixtures to become toxic to zebrafish, a widely used model organism that goes from egg to swimming in five days, and found that the UV-exposed mixture without zinc oxide did not cause any significant changes in the fish.

“There have been several studies that showed sunscreens can quickly react under UV exposure – the specifically intended setting for their use – so it’s pretty surprising how little toxicity testing has been done on the photodegradation products,” Truong said. “Our findings suggest that commercially available small-molecule-based formulas, which were the basis for the formulas we studied, can be combined in different ingredient ratios that minimize photodegradation.”

But scientists saw big differences in photostability and phototoxicity when zinc oxide particles were added – either nanoparticles or the larger microparticles.

“With either size of particle, zinc oxide degraded the organic mixture and caused a greater than 80% loss in organic filter protection against ultraviolet-A rays, which make up 95% of the UV radiation that reaches the Earth,” Santillan said. “Also, the zinc-oxide-induced photodegradation products caused significant increases in defects to the zebrafish we used to test toxicity. That suggests zinc oxide particles are leading to degradants whose introduction to aquatic ecosystems is environmentally hazardous.”

Tanguay said she was surprised that all five small-molecule mixtures were generally photostable but not surprised that adding zinc oxide particles led to toxicity upon UV irradiation.

“As a team at Oregon State that specializes in studying nanoparticle toxicity, these results were not a shock,” she said. “The findings would surprise many consumers who are misled by ‘nano free’ labels on mineral-based sunscreens that imply the sunscreens are safe just because they don’t contain those smaller particles. Any size of metal oxide particle can have reactive surface sites, whether it is less than 100 nanometers or not. More important than size is the metal identity, its crystal structure and any surface coatings.”

Interrupting high-fat, high-calorie diet with regular ‘fasting’ cycles helps mice live longer, healthier life: study

University of Southern California, October 14, 2021

In a new USC study on the health effects of a low-calorie diet that mimics fasting in the body, researchers found regular five-day cycles of the diet in mice seemed to counteract the detrimental effects of their usual high-fat, high-calorie diet. The study, published today in Nature Metabolism, analyzed the diet, health and lifespan of three different groups of mice over two years.

The findings point to the potential of using a fasting-mimicking diet as “medicine,” according to the researchers. A fasting-mimicking diet, or FMD, is a low-calorie diet that “tricks” the body into a fasting state.

One group of mice ate a high-calorie, high-fat diet (with 60% of their calories from fat) and became unhealthy and overweight. A second group of mice ate the same poor diet as the first one for approximately 4 weeks, followed by five days where they were fed an FMD and two days of a normal, healthy diet.

Study authors say those brief diet interventions were sufficient for that second group to return to normal levels of cholesterol, blood pressure and weight. Notably, the mice who ate the fasting-mimicking diet for five days out of each month lived as long as a third group of mice that was consistently fed a healthy diet.

In humans, obesity caused by a high-fat, high calorie diet is a major risk factor for metabolic syndrome, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

“The study indicates that it’s possible for mice to eat a relatively bad diet that is counterbalanced by five days of a fasting-mimicking diet,” said study senior author Valter Longo, the director of the Longevity Institute at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology and professor of biological sciences at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. ”Our major discovery is that intervening with this diet made their hearts more resilient and better functioning than the mice who only ate a high-fat, high-calorie diet.”

The study authors say cycles of FMD appeared to prevent obesity in mice by reducing the accumulation of visceral and subcutaneous fat—all without causing lean body mass loss. FMD cycles also appeared to improve heart function and prevent high blood sugar and high cholesterol.

According to researchers, the effect of FMD cycles on gene expression indicated a role for fat cell reprogramming in obesity prevention. Specifically, the diet’s impact on fat accumulation and cardiac aging could explain protection from early death caused by a high-fat, high-calorie diet.

The researchers caution these results should not be misinterpreted. They emphasize that they don’t recommend that humans should eat a high-calorie, high-fat diet that’s mitigated by periodic fasting.

They say, however, the potential benefits of counteracting poor diets in this way should be further studied in clinical trials. These strategies could provide potential health benefits for people who may not be willing or able to change their diets on an everyday basis.

The most effective diets at preventing or mitigating obesity in humans, including the ketogenic diet, require often radical and daily changes in dietary habits, the study authors say. Those requirements result in very low long-term compliance.

Longo said the study may indicate a “sweet spot” for the FMD in mice of five days a month.

“Even after the mice in experimental group went back to their high-fat, high-calorie diet, the improved fat breakdown in their bodies continued for a fairly long period,” Longo explained. “Is there a similar sweet spot for humans, where you can intervene for a few days and still keep breaking down fat for several weeks?

Early FMD trials indicate potential health benefits for humans, he added. Several clinical studies published by Longo and colleagues indicate that a monthly FMD caused loss of fat mass without loss of muscle mass and improved cardiometabolic risk factors, especially in overweight or obese humans. They say this new mouse study shows that these monthly FMD cycles can actually restore normal heart and metabolic health and lifespan in animals fed a high-fat and high-calorie diet, a lifelong study that cannot be done in humans.

How highly processed foods harm memory in the aging brain

Ohio State University, October 14, 2021

Four weeks on a diet of highly processed food led to a strong inflammatory response in the brains of aging rats that was accompanied by behavioral signs of memory loss, a new study has found.

Researchers also found that supplementing the processed diet with the omega-3 fatty acid DHA prevented memory problems and reduced the inflammatory effects almost entirely in older rats.

Neuroinflammation and cognitive problems were not detected in young adult rats that ate the processed diet.

The study diet mimicked ready-to-eat human foods that are often packaged for long shelf lives, such as potato chips and other snacks, frozen entrees like pasta dishes and pizzas, and deli meats containing preservatives.

Highly processed diets are also associated with obesity and type 2 diabetes, suggesting older consumers might want to scale back on convenience foods and add foods rich in DHA, such as salmon, to their diets, researchers say—especially considering harm to the aged brain in this study was evident in only four weeks.

“The fact we’re seeing these effects so quickly is a little bit alarming,” said senior study author Ruth Barrientos, an investigator in The Ohio State University Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research and associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral health.

“These findings indicate that consumption of a processed diet can produce significant and abrupt memory deficits—and in the aging population, rapid memory decline has a greater likelihood of progressing into neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. By being aware of this, maybe we can limit processed foods in our diets and increase consumption of foods that are rich in the omega-3 fatty acid DHA to either prevent or slow that progression.”

The research is published in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity.

Barrientos’ lab studies how everyday life events—such as surgery, an infection or, in this case, an unhealthy diet—might trigger inflammation in the aging brain, with a specific focus on the hippocampus and amygdala regions. This work builds on her previous research suggesting a short-term, high-fat diet can lead to memory loss and brain inflammation in older animals, and that DHA levels are lower in the hippocampus and amygdala of the aged rat brain.

DHA, or docosahexaenoic acid, is an omega-3 fatty acid that is present along with eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) in fish and other seafood. Among DHA’s multiple functions in the brain is a role in fending off an inflammatory response—this is the first study of its ability to act against brain inflammation brought on by a processed diet.

The research team randomly assigned 3-month-old and 24-month-old male rats to their normal chow (32% calories from protein, 54% from wheat-based complex carbs and 14% from fat), a highly processed diet (19.6% of calories from protein, 63.3% from refined carbs—cornstarch, maltodextrin and sucrose—and 17.1% from fat), or the same processed diet supplemented with DHA.

Activation of genes linked to a powerful pro-inflammatory protein and other markers of inflammation was significantly elevated in the hippocampus and amygdala of the older rats that ate the processed diet alone compared to young rats on any diet and aged rats that ate the DHA-supplemented processed food.

The older rats on the processed diet also showed signs of memory loss in behavioral experiments that weren’t evident in the young rats. They forgot having spent time in an unfamiliar space within a few days, a sign of problems with contextual memory in the hippocampus, and did not display anticipatory fear behavior to a danger cue, which suggested there were abnormalities in the amygdala.

“The amygdala in humans has been implicated in memories associated with emotional—fear and anxiety-producing—events. If this region of the brain is dysfunctional, cues that predict danger may be missed and could lead to bad decisions,” Barrientos said.

The results also showed that DHA supplementation of the processed-food diets consumed by the older rats effectively prevented the elevated inflammatory response in the brain as well as behavioral signs of memory loss.

Researchers don’t know the exact dosage of DHA—or precise calories and nutrients—taken in by the animals, which all had unlimited access to food. Both age groups gained a significant amount of weight on the processed diet, with old animals gaining significantly more than the young animals. DHA supplementation had no preventive effect on weight gain associated with eating highly processed foods.

That was a key finding: Barrientos cautioned against interpreting the results as a license for consumers to feast on processed foods as long as they take a DHA supplement. A better bet to prevent multiple negative effects of highly refined foods would be focusing on overall diet improvement, she said.

“These are the types of diets that are advertised as being low in fat, but they’re highly processed. They have no fiber and have refined carbohydrates that are also known as low-quality carbohydrates,” she said. “Folks who are used to looking at nutritional information need to pay attention to the fiber and quality of carbohydrates. This study really shows those things are important.”

High intake of fatty acid in nuts, seeds and plant oils linked to lower risk of death

Abadan University of Medical Sciences (Iran), October 14, 2021

A high intake of alpha linolenic acid (ALA)—found mainly in nuts, seeds, and plant oils—is associated with a lower risk of death from all causes, and specifically from diseases of the heart and blood vessels, finds a study published by The British Medical Journal today.

Higher ALA intake was associated with a slightly higher risk of death from cancer, but the researchers say further studies are needed to confirm this.

Alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) is a type of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid found in plants, such as soybean, nuts, canola oils and flaxseed.

Previous studies have shown that a high ALA intake is associated with a lower risk of fatal coronary heart disease, but findings from other studies on ALA and risk of death have been inconclusive.

To address this uncertainty, an international team of researchers analyzed the results of 41 studies published between 1991 and 2021 on the associations between ALA and risk of death from all causes, cardiovascular disease and cancer.

Together, these studies involved around 120,000 participants aged between 18 and 98 years who were monitored for between two and 32 years, and they accounted for factors such as age, weight, smoking status, alcohol consumption, and physical activity.

After thoroughly assessing each study for bias, the researchers found that a high intake of ALA was associated with a 10%, 8%, and 11% lower risk of mortality from all causes, cardiovascular disease, and coronary heart disease, respectively.

This is equivalent to 113 fewer deaths per 10,000 person years for all causes, 33 fewer cardiovascular disease deaths, and 23 fewer coronary heart disease deaths.

A higher intake of ALA, however, was associated with a slightly higher risk of cancer mortality, equivalent to 63 extra cancer deaths for the highest compared with lowest levels of ALA intake.

A dose-response effect was found for dietary ALA intake and cardiovascular disease mortality, such that a 1g per day increase in ALA intake (equivalent to one tablespoon of canola oil or 0.5 ounces of walnut oil) was associated with a 5% lower risk of cardiovascular disease mortality.

Higher blood levels of ALA were also associated with lower risks of mortality.

Due to the observational design of included studies, causality cannot be established, nor can the researchers rule out the possibility that other unknown factors or measurement errors of food and nutrient intakes might have affected their results.

Nevertheless, use of stringent study inclusion criteria together with rigorous and systematic evaluation of study quality suggests their conclusions are robust.

As such, they say their study adds to evidence of the potential health benefits of polyunsaturated fatty acids.

And they conclude: “Further studies should examine the association between ALA and a wider range of causes of death to provide a more comprehensive assessment of the potential health effects of ALA as well as to examine whether specific foods rich in ALA are differentially associated with mortality from cancer and other causes.”

A linked article summarizes the current evidence on dietary intakes of different types of fatty acids and death.

Despite the beneficial effects of omega 3 fatty acids, it suggests that recommendations for intakes should be made cautiously because ALA intake might slightly increase the risk of cancer mortality. Further studies are, however, needed to confirm the increased risk.

Tackling the collateral damage from antibiotics

University of Tübingen (Germany), October 13, 2021

Antibiotics cure bacterial infections and save millions of lives each year. But they can also harm the helpful microbes residing in the gut, weakening one of the body’s first lines of defense against pathogens and compromising the multiple beneficial effects our microbiota has for our health. Common side effects of this collateral damage of antibiotics are gastrointestinal problems and recurrent Clostridioides difficile infections. They also include long-term health problems, such as the development of allergic, metabolic, immunological or inflammatory diseases.

Researchers from the Typas group at EMBL Heidelberg, the Maier lab at the Cluster of Excellence “Controlling Microbes to Fight Infections’ at the University of Tübingen, and collaborators have analyzed the effects of 144 antibiotics on our most common gut microbes. The study published in the journal Nature substantially improves our understanding of antibiotics’ effects on gut microbes. It also suggests a new approach to mitigating the adverse effects of antibiotics therapy on the gut microbiome.

The human gut harbors an intricate community of different microbial species as well as many viruses, collectively referred to as the gut microbiome. Together, they enable us to use nutrients more efficiently and hinder pathogenic bacteria from settling in our gut. However, when we treat a bacterial infection with antibiotics, there’s a risk of damaging the gut microbiome.

“Many antibiotics inhibit the growth of various pathogenic bacteria. This broad activity spectrum is useful when treating infections, but it increases the risk that the microbes in our gut are targeted as well,” explained Lisa Maier, DFG Emmy Noether group leader at the University of Tübingen. Maier is an alumna of the Typas lab and one of the two lead authors of the study.

If certain gut bacteria are harmed more than others, antibiotics therapy can lead to an imbalance in our microbiota composition, commonly referred to as dysbiosis. Diarrhea is a common short-term effect, while allergic conditions such as asthma or food allergies and obesity are possible long-term consequences. The fact that antibiotics are also active against gut microbes has been known for a long time, but their effects on the large diversity of microbes we carry in our gut had not yet been studied systematically, mostly due to technical challenges.

“So far, our knowledge of the effects of different antibiotics on individual members of our gut microbial communities has been patchy. Our study fills major gaps in our understanding of which type of antibiotic affects which types of bacteria, and in what way,” said Nassos Typas, Senior Scientist and Group Leader at EMBL Heidelberg.

Building on a previous study from EMBL’s Typas, Bork, Patil, and Zeller groups, the scientists observed how each of the 144 antibiotics affected the growth and survival of up to 27 bacterial strains commonly inhabiting our guts. The researchers determined the concentrations at which a given antibiotic would affect these bacterial strains for more than 800 antibiotic–strain combinations, expanding existing datasets on antibiotic spectra in gut bacterial species by 75 percent.

Importantly, the experiments revealed that tetracyclines and macrolides—two commonly used antibiotics families—not only stopped bacteria from growing, but also lead to their death. About half of the tested gut strains did not survive treatment with these types of antibiotics.

“We didn’t expect to see this effect with tetracyclines and macrolides, as these antibiotic classes were considered to have only bacteriostatic effects—which means that they stop bacterial growth, but don’t kill bacteria,” said Camille Goemans, a postdoctoral fellow in the Typas group who shares first authorship with Maier. “Our experiments show that this assumption is not true for about half of the gut microbes we studied. Doxycycline, erythromycin, and azithromycin, three commonly used antibiotics, killed several abundant gut microbial species, whereas others they just inhibited.”

The selective killing of specific microbes by tetracyclines and macrolides could lead to these microbes being inadvertently lost from the gut microbiota much faster than microbes for which growth is only inhibited, as the authors showed with synthetic microbial communities. This could explain the strong microbiota shifts that some patients being treated with these antibiotics witness.

There is a way of reducing the damage, though. “We have shown before that drugs interact differently across different bacterial species. We therefore explored whether a second drug could mask the harmful effects of antibiotics on abundant gut microbes, but allow antibiotics to retain their activity against pathogens. This would provide something like an antidote, which would reduce the collateral damage of antibiotics on gut bacteria,” explained Typas.

The scientists combined the antibiotics erythromycin or doxycycline with a set of nearly 1,200 pharmaceuticals, to identify drugs that would save two abundant gut bacterial species from the antibiotic. Indeed, the researchers identified several non-antibiotic drugs that could rescue these gut microbes and other related species. Importantly, the combination of an antibiotic with a protective second drug did not compromise the antibiotics’ efficacy against pathogenic bacteria.

Follow-up experiments indicated that this approach may be working in the context of a natural microbiome as well. With help from collaborators, the scientists showed that the combination of erythromycin with an antidote mitigated the loss of certain abundant gut bacterial species from the mouse gut. Similarly, antidote drugs protected human gut microbes from erythromycin in complex bacterial communities derived from stool samples.

“Our approach that combines antibiotics with a protective antidote could open new opportunities for reducing the harmful side effects of antibiotics on our gut microbiomes,” concluded Maier. “No single antidote will be able to protect all the bacteria in our gut—especially since those differ so much across individuals. But this concept opens up the door for developing new personalized strategies to keep our gut microbes healthy.”

Further research will be needed to identify the optimal combinations, dosing, and formulations for antidotes, and to exclude potential long-term effects on the gut microbiome. In the future, the new approach may help to keep our gut microbiomehealthy and reduce antibiotics’ side effects in patients, without compromising the efficiency of our antibiotics as lifesavers.

The study was a collaborative effort, involving researchers from EMBL’s Typas, Bork, Zeller, Zimmermann, and Patil groups, as well as colleagues at the University of Tübingen, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, and the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in Berlin.