Gut-Inflammation Link Explained

🤔 Have you heard that gut microbes can cross the gut barrier, activate immune cells, and drive inflammation in the body?

Research suggests that’s true, but here’s the thing…

We’ve had no easy way to know which gut microbes tend to breach the gut barrier or which are most likely to contribute to inflammatory disease.

⭐Until now ⭐

Because now, scientists at Cedars-Sinai and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease have come up with a way to measure specific antibodies to gut microbes—in human blood serum (without even needing a stool sample!)

Here’s what these researchers recently published in the journal Science Translational Medicine:

🩸 Blood samples were taken from people with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and compared with samples from healthy individuals.

🧪 Researchers used a new technique that can measure IgG antibodies against gut microbes in human blood serum.

🦠 They found that specific gut bacteria were targeted by the immune system in people with IBD, including Collinsella, Bifidobacterium, Lachnospiraceae and Ruminococcaceae.

What does this mean?

It means we now have solid evidence that gut microbes DO cross the gut barrier and DO trigger an immune response.

Plus, we know which specific microbes tend to do this in IBD.

While this information may not change the way we practice medicine right now (at least in our practice, we already address gut permeability and inflammation with most patients)…

🩺 It does confirm that our current approach is valid and that in the future we may have ways to be even more specific with our treatments.

If you or somebody you love is struggling with a chronic inflammatory condition, please know that this is where functional medicine shines.

We are here to help and invite you to take the first step by booking a Free  Functional Medicine Digestive Blueprint session here. 

Reference

Vujkovic-Cvijin I, Welles HC, Ha CWY et al. The systemic anti-microbiota IgG repertoire can identify gut bacteria that translocate across gut barrier surfaces. Sci Transl Med. [link]