Scholarly publication

Sabine Hazan, MD,  Series Editor

Simply and elegantly defined by Lynch and Pedersen in their December 2016 article in the New England Journal of Medicine, a microbiome is the collection of all genomes of microbes in an ecosystem. In the context of human beings and our health, it is the vastly diverse genetic information observable in the microbes colonizing the distal GI tract.  Historically, the study of human microbiology has been one of a [...]

Sabine Hazan, MD,  Series Editor

A new, emerging paradigm suggests that the susceptibility, severity, and duration of some diseases, even some previously thought to be independent of microbial involvement, are mediated by a complex interplay of host and microbe genomes. Already, nearly 10 million different microbial genes have been isolated from the human gut. In this series, we aim to shed light on some of the most promising research to date that [...]

Sabine Hazan, MD,  Series Editor

An IBD patient’s quality of life can be significantly diminished when treated with conventional therapies. However, like the trend of fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) for the treatment of Clostridium difficile infection, there is promising evidence that a similar approach will prove efficacious in treating UC and Crohn’s, especially given the increasingly predictable intestinal microbiome perturbation [...]

Sabine Hazan, MD,  Series Editor

There is a growing body of research suggesting that obesity, metabolic syndrome, and insulin resistance are associated with predictable phyla and gene level compositional changes in the intestinal microbiome of humans and mice. With a better understanding of these changes, we can develop new, robust therapeutic strategies. In this article, we will briefly discuss some of the definitive research related to  [...]

Sabine Hazan, MD,  Series Editor

In this article, we discuss further understanding the gut microbiome along with its effect on metabolites and cardiovascular health. This understanding will give us opportunities to develop new test and therapeutic approaches to arteriosclerosis. In the future, stool transplantation with lean or low risk for cardiovascular disease microflora may be a way of treating patients who are susceptible to [...]

Sabine Hazan, MD,  Series Editor

Throughout this series we have pointed to evidence of an increasingly complex understanding of the relationship between the gut, its commensal bacterial composition, and its link to various pathological states within different organ systems. Here we will briefly discuss the emerging research that  [...]

Sabine Hazan, MD,  Series Editor

Probiotic is a general term for live, nonpathogenic microorganisms, many of which exist in a symbiotic relationship within the normal human gut flora. Here we discuss their growth in popularity, their use in treating Gastrointestinal (GI) and non-GI medical conditions, and the data demonstrating their  [...]

Sabine Hazan, MD,  Series Editor

The digestive tract’s microbial ecosystem is tailored for specific geographic areas. Here we discuss how the rise of globalization has spurred a mass transition of the European and American microbiome worldwide, altering the unique digestive patterns and processes of other nations. We can partially attribute our global obesity epidemic [...]

Mar 20, 2019 | Cover Story, Feature 

Kathy Jean Schultz

As a “yuk factor,” few topics can compete with poop. Also known as human waste, excrement, feces or fecal matter.

Poop being used as medicine scores even higher on the socially unacceptable scale. Yet it can be effective treatment for an infection that causes nonstop diarrhea, a sometimes fatal [...]