Probiotics are live bacteria and yeasts that are good for you, especially your digestive system. We usually think of these as germs that cause diseases. But your body is full of bacteria, both good and bad. Probiotics are often called “good” or “helpful” bacteria because they help keep your gut healthy.
Seen in everywhere, probiotics can also be found in dirty diapers in baby poop. And using probiotics, scientists at the Wake Forest School of Medicine have developed a probiotic “cocktail” derived from gut bacteria strains found in baby poops that may help increase the body’s ability to produce short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs).
Scientists designed the study to examine the effects of probiotic strains derived from healthy human fecal samples and to determine how they worked.
Hariom Yadav, Ph.D., assistant professor of molecular medicine at Wake Forest School of Medicine said, “Babies are usually pretty healthy and clearly do not suffer from age-related diseases, such as diabetes and cancer. And, of course, their poop is readily available.”
For this study, scientists collected fecal samples from the diapers of 34 healthy infants. Subsequent to following a robust protocol of isolation, portrayal and safety validation of infant gut-origin Lactobacillus and Enterococcus strain with probiotic traits, the scientists chose the 10 best out of the 321 analyzed.
To test the capacity of these human-origin probiotics to change the gut microbiome—bacteria that live inside the stomach related track—and their ability to create SCFAs, mice were given a single dose, and in addition five back to back dosages of this 10-strain probiotic cocktail. At that point, the scientists infused a similar probiotic blend in similar dosages into a human feces medium.
The researchers found that the single-and five-dose feeding of these selected probiotics modulated the gut microbiome and upgraded the creation of SCFAs in mouse gut and human dung.
Yadav said, “This work provides evidence that these human-origin probiotics could be exploited as biotherapeutic regimens for human diseases associated with gut microbiome imbalance and decreased SCFA production in the gut. Our data should be useful for future studies aimed at investigating the influence of probiotics on human microbiome, metabolism and associated diseases.”
