A systematic review of 21 clinical trials examined whether probiotics, prebiotics and synbiotics can improve cholesterol and triglyceride levels in people with dyslipidaemia, finding suggestive but inconclusive evidence.
A Lancet Microbe perspective argues that most gut microbiome cancer links come from unreliable cross-sectional studies, and calls for more prospective cohorts that bank stool samples years before any cancer diagnosis to finally test causation.
A randomized trial that put coffee drinkers through a washout and reintroduction found decaffeinated coffee shifted the same gut bacteria as regular coffee, and even edged it out on memory and sleep measures, though the sample was small and partly coffee-industry funded.
A new mechanistic study finds that propionate, a short-chain fatty acid made by gut bacteria, drives CD8+ T-cells into colorectal tumors and strengthens immunotherapy, even in the microsatellite stable tumors that usually resist these drugs. The evidence spans human blood and tumor samples plus two mouse models, though human testing of the mechanism has not yet begun.
A nationwide cohort study of more than 700,000 South Korean adults found that rosacea and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) each raise the risk of developing the other, the strongest evidence yet for a two-way gut-skin connection, though it stops short of proving causation.
A new Nature study in mice suggests the long-observed link between high BMI and better cancer immunotherapy response may actually come down to diet-shaped gut bacteria, like Lactobacillus johnsonii, and a microbial metabolite called desaminotyrosine, not body fat itself. The work is preclinical, but it points to testable, non-obesity-based ways to potentially boost immunotherapy response.
Researchers scraped the tongue coating of 62 older adults, 31 with Alzheimer's and 31 without, and found a distinct bacterial and chemical signature in the Alzheimer's group, centered on a fat-metabolism pathway that also showed up disrupted in their spinal fluid.
A Karolinska Institutet PhD thesis combining five studies finds that specific gut bacteria track with HIV-1 reservoir size and vaccine response in people on long-term antiretroviral therapy, though the associations are observational, not causal.
A new metagenomic study of 101 sickle cell disease patients found altered gut bacteria and a 1.7-fold rise in dormant gut viruses called prophages, with the viral signal tracking inflammation markers more closely than the bacteria did. The cross-sectional, reviewed-preprint findings point to new biomarkers, not a treatment.
A four-week randomized trial found a daily low-methoxy pectin supplement improved leg strength, eased anxiety and depression, and shifted gut bacteria in frail and pre-frail older adults, though the inflammatory markers researchers expected to change did not move.
