Researchers used a smartphone app to look at how gut bacteria is affected by life events such as contracting diseases and traveling to other countries.
The research, published recently in the journal Genome Biology, to determine which activities interfered with microbiota, BioMed Central reported.
Gut microbiota is a colony of bacteria living within a human body; these bacteria are unique to each individual. They usually live in harmony with their human hosts and are believed to have a strong association with our health.
In the study two participants used smartphone apps to record their everyday activities for a period spanning one years. These activities included "diet, exercise, bowel movements and mood." The participants also submitted stool and saliva samples regularly. The participants were screened on their willingness to track these activities. The data and samples were examined in detail by researchers to see what factors had the greatest effect on these crucial organisms.
The results showed the participants had adefault microbiota that was not affected by things such as sleep level and moods. Activities that did affect these bacteria included moving abroad and contracting food poisoning. Stomach illnesses such as this proved to cause gut bacteria to decline. The changes in microbiota associated with food were found to be day-by-day.
"I was surprised by our results in several ways. First, I wasn't sure we would find correlations between fiber intake and gut bacterial dynamics on such short time scales. And I was amazed to see how profoundly a single food poisoning event impacted the gut bacteria. This has given us a lot of new ideas for follow up studies and analyses of gut microbial ecology, as well as enteric infectious diseases in humans," said Professor Lawrence David from Duke University.
