A multi-omics study of 29 acne patients and 20 controls, with mouse validation, identifies gamma-glutamyl tyrosine (GGTyr) as a gut metabolite that promotes C. acnes growth and worsens acne-like lesions. The human findings are correlational; the causal GGTyr-to-C. acnes link comes from mice.
Deep genetic sequencing shows the Tsimane of Bolivia and the Hadza of Tanzania still share 1,231 gut microbial species despite tens of thousands of years of separation, with strain-level dating suggesting co-migration with early human populations out of Africa and into the Americas. Most of the shared species are missing from industrialized guts today.
In a secondary analysis of a diet trial for multiple sclerosis, gut bacteria's propionate making potential rose most under a ketogenic diet, and within that group, bigger shifts tracked with smaller brain lesion growth. The trial's main result found no diet difference, and the authors call this exploratory.
In an interim analysis of 13 cancer patients whose immunotherapy caused severe colitis, a first-line fecal microbiota transplant eased symptoms in 10 of them within days, and 5 were able to resume immunotherapy. The study is small, uncontrolled, and still recruiting.
In a 60-person trial, people with relapsing-remitting MS who added daily probiotic yogurt and a yeast tablet to their usual therapy saw significantly less fatigue, depression and disability than those on standard treatment alone. The study was small and unblinded, and never measured participants' gut bacteria directly.
A retrospective study of 124 patients treated with fecal microbiota transplantation for C. diff infection found that taking antibiotics for an unrelated reason, either before or after the transplant, roughly tripled the odds of the infection coming back. Overall, three in four patients improved within a week, but the findings point to a concrete step, limiting non essential antibiotics around the time of FMT, that could improve those odds further.
A Molecular Psychiatry analysis of the ALSPAC UK birth cohort finds that polygenic risk scores for ADHD, autism, and depression predict different peer, school/employment, and suicidality outcomes depending on whether you look in childhood, adolescence, or young adulthood. No gut-microbiome findings are involved.
A review proposes that vitamin D and gut bacteria regulate each other and jointly shape immune balance in thyroid disease, drawing on cohort data from Hashimoto's, Graves', thyroid nodule, and thyroid cancer patients.
A review in Frontiers in Immunology traces how an infant's gut bacteria can shape airway inflammation in childhood asthma, pulling together birth-cohort studies like PASTURE and CHILD with mouse mechanism studies.
Tracking 9,419 meals in antibiotic-treated patients, researchers found sugary foods predicted steeper gut bacteria loss and more growth of a risky bacterium, Enterococcus, a link confirmed causally in mice.
