Homogenized fecal matter for transplantation (credit: Wikimedia)
Our guts are teeming with trillions of microbes. They fight, form alliances, gobble our food, spew chemicals, and hack our immune systems. These hidden happenings in our innards hold sway over our health. Yet the key microbial players and their affairs vary considerably from person-to-person. And, overall, these communities remain a mystery to scientists.
This week, three studies published in the journal Science offer new glimpses of what’s going on in the black box that is our guts. While they all provide insights into these complex communities, they also highlight just how much we still have to learn.
Two studies dug into people’s health and, literally, their poop looking why there is so much variation in gut microbiome. Factors the studies hoped might explain that variation include diet, medication, disease, and stool types—from hard lumps to mushy piles according to the Bristol stool scale. The studies looked at samples from 1,135 Dutch and 1,106 Belgian volunteers. Researchers found that such factors account for only 18.7 percent and 7.6 percent, respectively, of variation. What differences account for the rest are complete unknowns.
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