Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have linked imidazole propionate, a compound made by certain gut bacteria, to Alzheimer's disease pathology. In mice, the compound worsened buildup of amyloid and tau; in nearly 1,200 people, higher blood levels tracked with weaker memory-related markers and faster cognitive decline. The human link is an association, not proof the compound causes dementia.
A new worldwide analysis estimates that infections caused about 12% of all cancers in 2024, with the stomach bacterium H. pylori responsible for more cases than any other infectious agent.
A large, long-running study of 964 women finds that blood markers of gut barrier breakdown start rising more than two years before the final menstrual period, climbing for about 9 years before leveling off at a higher baseline.
A narrative review in the Future Healthcare Journal argues the mouth's 700-species bacterial community has been structurally excluded from medicine, despite strong links to type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and preterm birth, and weaker, associative links to Alzheimer's and cancer.
A new study of 50 women with surgically confirmed endometriosis finds that specific gut bacteria, and variants in taste-receptor genes, line up with how severe certain pain symptoms are.
Hunter-gatherer and small-farming populations on different continents share the vast majority of their gut bacteria, and much of it is absent from industrialized guts, a new genetic analysis finds.
A chemical called indole, made by gut bacteria from tryptophan, worsened stroke brain injury in mice by acting on immune cells in the intestine. The same bacterial signature tracked with worse outcomes in a correlational human stroke cohort.
A purified mushroom polysaccharide does not heal a damaged gut lining directly - it feeds one bacterium, Phocaeicola vulgatus, which makes a fatty acid shown to repair the intestinal barrier in a mouse model of colitis. The human evidence so far is correlational only.
A genomic and metagenomic survey across 45 countries finds that one bacterial lineage, Escherichia marmotae, dominates global carriage of a DNA-damaging toxin gene cluster linked to colorectal tumor growth in lab models; based on the study's abstract only, full text not obtained.
A single-cell atlas of the mouse gut lining, corroborated by biopsies from children, finds that peanut allergy susceptibility tracks with a complete loss of the antimicrobial enzyme lysozyme in Paneth cells, with a plausible gut microbiome mechanism behind it.
