Multiple sclerosis (MS) is not a killer. But this chronic inflammatory autoimmune disease of the central nervous system severely damages the communication between nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord– leading to pain and debilitation. In essence, a protective sheath called myelin is attacked by the body’s own immune system, triggering an inflammatory […]
SCFAs
Exercise Improves Microbe Mix in Lean People
Baby, we were born to run. Despite that innate need to move, few of us do enough exercise for optimum health. Even our microbes will vary depending on movement. For example, endurance athletes harbor different microbes than sedentary people. A new study from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign tracked changes in the guts of […]
Short-Chain Fatty Acids: Colonic Infusion Could Fight Obesity
Imagine a trash collector paying you for the privilege of hauling away the junk. Not happening. But that’s what our gut microbes do: they digest the stuff we can’t—fiber—and then create short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) which are absolute manna for our metabolic health. Note: Counterintuitively, SCFAs are handled differently than fatty acids with long carbon chains, thus […]