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Human Gut Microbiome: A Connecting Organ Between Nutrition, Metabolism, and Health

Summary

Your gut bacteria function like an extra organ, helping digest food and producing important compounds that affect your whole body. The type of bacteria in your gut depends on diet, delivery method at birth, and antibiotics you’ve taken. Eating more fiber and taking certain probiotics can improve your bacterial balance and help prevent diseases like diabetes, obesity, and heart problems. This suggests that managing your gut microbiome through diet might be just as important as taking traditional medicines for staying healthy.

Background

The gut microbiome functions as a metabolic organ influencing nutrient absorption and overall health. Technological advances in omics platforms like metagenomics have enabled better understanding of microbial composition and health-disease relationships. Growing evidence demonstrates that dietary interventions can modulate the microbiome and improve health outcomes.

Objective

This review examines whether healthcare systems should prioritize personalized microbiome-targeted therapies such as probiotics, prebiotics, and microbiota transplants over traditional pharmaceuticals for chronic diseases including obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular risk, and inflammatory conditions. The study explores key metabolic pathways and interactions between microbial metabolites and the immune system.

Results

Search yielded 2,411 records after removing duplicates. China leads research production at 55.34% with comparable citation rates to the USA. Scientific productivity shows exponential growth from 2013 onward. Dietary interventions including increased fiber and probiotic intake show potential for addressing dysbiosis linked to type 2 diabetes, obesity, and autoimmune diseases.

Conclusion

The microbiome plays a critical role in human health through metabolic pathways and immune regulation. Incorporating microbiome modulation strategies into clinical practice requires a multidisciplinary approach integrating nutrition, microbiology, and biochemistry. Personalized microbiome-targeted therapies represent promising alternatives to traditional pharmaceuticals for managing chronic diseases.
  • Published in:International Journal of Molecular Sciences,
  • Study Type:Systematic Review,
  • Source: PMID: 40362352, DOI: 10.3390/ijms26094112
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