Sir,?There is one aspect of study in nutrition which does not yet appear to have been accorded its true value. I refer to the part played by the organisms living inside the alimentary tract of man. To the majority studies on nutrition end at the stage at which the food is Swallowed. Others, more exact, define conditions in which absorption of the ultimate products of digestion is disturbed as f...

The alimentary tract at birth is either sterile or contains only a few micro-organisms (Wilson and Miles, 1955). Within a few days of birth a profuse flora is established in the mouth and large intestine. However, the small intestine remains relatively free from micro-organisms throughout life (Cregan and Hayward, 1953; Anderson and Langford, 1958a). Thus in health it seems that some antibacter...

The topics discussed at the WIRM-V meeting were very broad and interesting, covering a wide field in immunology. Since it is impossible to summarize everything, I will discuss the influence of diet and intestinal flora on immune responses, as this was a recurrent subject throughout the meeting. I will summarize a few presentations (given by E.G. Pamer, C. MacKay, D.R. Littman, Y. Belkaid, R. Ma...

The alimentary tract at birth is either sterile or contains only a few micro-organisms (Wilson and Miles, 1955). Within a few days of birth a profuse flora is established in the mouth and large intestine. However, the small intestine remains relatively free from micro-organisms throughout life (Cregan and Hayward, 1953; Anderson and Langford, 1958a). Thus in health it seems that some antibacter...

Intestinal flora performs a crucial role in human health and its imbalance may cause numerous pathological changes. The liver can also affect the intestinal function through bile secretion via the enterohepatic cycle. The pathophysiological association between the gut and the liver is described as the gut-liver axis. The present study investigated the role of intestinal flora in alcohol-induced...

The development of the intestinal flora in newborn infants starts during birth when the aseptic gastrointestinal tract of the fetus is inoculated by bacteria from the mother’s intestinal and vaginal flora. This leads to a diverse flora comprising Bifidobacteria, Clostridia, and gram positive Cocci (Heine et al., 1998). After this first inoculation, the flora changes rapidly, presumably under th...

We previously demonstrated that ciprofloxacin (CPX), a new quinolone antibiotic, suppresses Cyp3a in the mouse liver by reducing the hepatic level of lithocholic acid (LCA) produced by intestinal flora. The present study investigated the possibility that other antibiotics with antibacterial activity against LCA-producing bacteria also cause a decrease in the LCA level in the liver, leading to r...

OBJECTIVE As a complicated symbiotic system, intestinal flora is reported closely related to the development of type 2 diabetes recently. Sleeve gastrectomy is one of the approaches of bariatric surgery and could improve blood glucose control in type 2 diabetes patients. This study was to explore the relationship between remodeled intestinal flora and glucose metabolism in diabetic rats. METH...

Intestinal flora plays an important role in the decomposition and fecal excretion of methylmercury. The assumed mechanism is that decomposition of organic mercury (o-Hg) to inorganic mercury (i-Hg) by intestinal flora in cecum decreases the reabsorption of mercury in large intestines. To confirm this hypothesis, we examined the large intestinal mercury absorption in vitro from intestinal conten...