Talk:Gut microbiota/Archive 1

Archive 1

Request for cleanup of superfluous citations

Do we really need all these citations peppered about? I know scholar.google.com is great and all, but I utilize a text-to-speech engine, and the numerous citations account for a large percentage of the actual text in this article and generally muddy-up the readability of this intriguing subject and the informative wikipedia article. Is there a nicer/cleaner way to present these citations? Simply having the links at the end of the article seems to me the standard. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 63.192.52.26 (talk • contribs) .

Go ahead, be bold! Some citations are in the middle of sentences because the source only discusses that part of the sentence, but you're right, it does make it harder and more annoying to read. I used the Harvard ref style rather than footnotes because the footnotes are automatically numbered and won't work for sources cited multiple times. Maybe problematic sentences could be split into two or some of the citations could be removed entirely. Go ahead and do whatever you feel is necessary to improve the article. delldot | talk 00:28, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

• I added the citation style template. The referencing is appaling; it reads like an investigative report, not an encyclopedic article. In dire need of cleanup. Will do it myself if I get the time. TydeNet 16:02, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

• All done. Also, some pictures might be nice, considering the length of the article. TydeNet 05:55, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
  • It certainly looks nicer and is easier to read now, but I'm not sure that removing all in-line citations is the right thing to do here. My concerns are that you can't tell what information is referenced and what isn't. If someone adds information into the article, it won't be possible to tell which info needs fact checking and which does not. I do agree, though, that the citations were excessive and annoying. Maybe if we cite a single article after the less well-established facts? Or change to the footnote style? What do you think about these concerns and ideas? delldot | talk 07:50, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
• If we keep track of recent changes we will be able to force the verification of added material if necessary. Shouldn't be a problem. I like your idea of adding citations to certain less-established claims or the result of reports, however it should be done as discreetly as possible. Footnoting is a good idea; adding in-page links to the references section could be done quite nicely. Eg: "Bacteria X is more harmful than Bacteria Y" , (reference name). Introduce your own ideas as you see fit. TydeNet 09:50, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Number of human and bacterial cells

I looked for information of how many bacterial cells is there in my gut. Multiplying of 10^13 (human body) by 10 is 10^14, but is this result true? I was told I have 5 million red cells in 1 mm3 of my blood. It means 5E09 in 1 cm3 and 5E12 in one liter. If I have 4 liters of blood (as I hope), it means I have 2E13 cells in blood alone. What about muscle cells, fat, skin, brain etc.? What should I multiply by 10? Certainly not 10^13. Accidental visitor.89.76.173.244 15:45, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes

These articles might be useful for this page: PMID 16033867, PMID 17183309, and PMID 17183312. Ninjatacoshell 19:28, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Question

After reading the article, I am still unsure as to where the bacteria that make up the gut flora come from. Is it neonatal, from breast milk, or carried in by food? Or perhaps the source is still unknown. Mystyc1 04:46, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I believe it is all the source syou mentioned and countless others. They seem to be species which evolved and adapted to the human body, perhaps the body of other organisms. But to answer your question again: I am quite sure by reading the article that they are obtained from pretty much anything which has had previous contact with them, as vague as that may sound. Zulu Inuoe 14:58, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Helicobacter pylori

H pylori can be found in the gut, but as far as I can tell, neither H pylori or its genus are mentioned in this article. Due to the notability of H Pylori, its prevalence, and its status as a carcinogen, shouldn't at least some mention be made?? - Concerned unsigned editor - July 30, 2007

If a reference to H. pylori was to be added, I would suggest putting it in the localization section, since it is found principally in the stomach, and is unusual in that it can survive there. References to stomach ulcers and cancer can safely be left up to the main article on H. pylori. Ornot demar (talk) 13:22, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Bacteria in the faeces

this is the correct source for the reference [2] : http://jmm.sgmjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/13/1/45 Riennn (talk) 06:05, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Anthropogenic bias

This article is extremely skewed towards human gut flora. What about the gut flora of ruminants and termites etc. ? I guess that maybe the human stuff needs to be put in a separate article at some point. Smartse (talk) 22:17, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Another question

I just quit taking a long course of two potent antibiotics, one is Flagyl, which is very broad spectrum and kills protozoa, too. I'm very curious. How many gut organism species have been completely killed, and must be repopulated somehow, presumably via the mouth? How many organism species have likely survived? Is my colon sterile now?

Self-appointed experts tell me to eat yogurt. But yogurt organisms are everywhere in the environment anyway, and likely early gut repopulators, assuming they have all been killed off. So, what's the point?

How long does it take before my gut flora are pretty much back to normal? Weeks? Months? Over a year? Unknown? What about people who have never taken antibiotics? Are their gut flora markedly different from the average westerner, who has taken them many times? I've googled around quite a bit. I can never find answers. If the answers to these rather obvious questions are unknown, maybe the article should say so.66.53.97.18 (talk) 06:54, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

I just found this study. [1] It seems to answer some of these questions, tentatively. I'm not very good at editing, so I'll leave that to someone else who might be interested.66.53.97.18 (talk) 07:09, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

immunity

I took the liberty of clearing out the language and inaccuraces regarding the section of TLRs and NODs. the innaccuracies were in the fact that TLRs (in plural) isn't one of two pattern recognition receptors, TLR is a class of PRR; TLR4 is an example of a specific TLR receptor in the TLR group. and while there may be two classes of PRR involved in developing tolerance to bacteria, NOD is not the other PRR involved, it must be the other class involved. If in fact there was a specific NOD involved, then provide them ( NOD1 or NOD2 etc.). as it was written previously it gives the impression that there are only to types of PRRs the toll-like receptor, and the NOD receptor, when infact there are several TLRs and NODs.

Additionally, currently there are a totally of three classes of PRR recognized in the research community. I do not know whether the third class (Rig-I-like receptors) are involved in this process, although this seems unlikely, however as it is written, it stands accurate without mentioning this existence.

Brachs (talk) 21:22, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Where do we cover other than bacteria?

I read this article with interest, yet like nearly all other wiki articles on the gut, digestive process and related health issues there seems to be little discussion of the role of non-bacterial "life". Various articles do make passing reference to yeasts, fungi and parasites, but there seems to a total dearth of references to the role of viral flora and in particular bacteriophage. We do of specific instances where these place an active role (e.g. in disease processes such as the production of cholera toxin), and over the last couple of years there has been a number of interesting papers, such as Metagenomic Analyses of an Uncultured Viral Community from Human Feces. I've traversed PubMed for related documents and found some other interesting hits, but unfortunately I haven't found any secondary published reviews as yet :-(

I would interest in the original contributors viwe on this. — TerryE (talk) 18:26, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Why not add it to the "Types" section - this whole section could be expanded IMO - that source certainly sounds interesting. Smartse (talk) 11:10, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Non WP:MEDRS content

I've just noted some non-MEDRS content being added

• The microbes have around 100 times as many genes between them as are in the human genome.. This is a BBC article which doesn't cite MEDRS. IIRC, this claim is reasonable, but I am not sure if this applies specifically to gut bacterial and virol gene counts. If someone can dig up a MEDRS source then it might make sense to restore a variant but not necessarily in the intro.

-- TerryE (talk) 19:17, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I added that when not logged in. I don't get what you mean by it not citing a MEDRS, it says it came from an article in nature. Admittedly there could be a better source for it but the info is clearly verifiable and it wouldn't take long to find the paper. I added it to the lead because there is nowhere else suitable for it, the article is a bit strange as the lead isn't a lead but an intro. I've got the original paper so will revert again and add this as a source. Smartse (talk) 18:37, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry but let me explain. This is a medical article and therefore you aren't allowed to make such statements based on reports in the BBC website. See WP:MEDRS. However, the Nature Article is fine. You don't need both. I'll edit the reference to use a standard citation template. Thanks -- TerryE (talk) 03:17, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not really sure that this is exactly a medical article - certain parts should certainly be sourced by MEDRS but I still think the BBC article was fine for what was being added. I also think it is useful to keep the BBC article, since few people have access to Nature and even if they did would not be able to understand what was written. Smartse (talk) 11:16, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Gene transfer

This would be interesting to add (also covered here). Smartse (talk) 11:16, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

microbes

microbes is a usefull it is realy mold and mold makes milk and chese —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.202.88.91 (talk) 16:44, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Title

The title belongs in general biology; as the content is, it should be moved to 'Human gut flora'. Macdonald-ross (talk) 09:39, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

• You're right, this article has a very human centric approach. To be fair, most of the literature on gut microbiota at the moment is also human centric. The human stuff should be subtitled, précised and a link provided to "human gut flora". The function of the gut microbiota across species should be discussed here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.156.124.75 (talk • contribs)

Reference 23 (Referenced from "Preventing Inflammatory Bowel Disease")

This is my first attempt at Wikipedia - my apologies if I do anything wrong. I read through reference #23, which is referenced to support the claim that the use of antibiotics is associated with inflammatory bowel disease. I do not see any discussion on IBD in the referenced journal article. The article refers to IBS (irritable bowel syndrome), which should not be confused with IBD. I believe a better reference should be found if possible.

99.232.74.194 (talk) 17:22, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Expect a mention of LDN

Low dose naltrexone claims to be able to treat IBD and Crohns. From what I've seen it supposedly treats most autoimmune conditions. Given you need referenced references, I'd be surprised if it can be deemed worthy of a mention. If LDN is mentioned, the fair thing to do would be to hunt down reputable references for it before deleting wholesale. Shtanto (talk) 15:59, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

"Predicting a human gut microbiota": informal tone?

When reading this section the tone struck me as not encyclopaedic. My mind's a bit fried today so I can't begin to explain why, but the inclusion of a question to the reader is involved I think.

Anyone feel like editing it to fix it? I'll get around to it myself eventually if no-one does. Cheers.

Breadified (talk) 15:09, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Misnomer and introductory paragraph

"Flora" means plants, "fauna" means animals. Bacteria are animals. The use of "gut flora" is nearly always inappropriate.

The use of 'Flora' is a misnomer, and the introduction states that a more appropriate term is in use, but both the title and following article continue to use 'Flora' where 'Microbiota', even if less commonly known, is more accurate, and thus appropriate. The title and references to 'Flora' in this article should be changed, and a redirect for 'Gut Flora' should be added to this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.56.231.15 (talk) 01:34, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure why this should be mentioned at all - however much 'flora' might be a misnomer, it is the most common term used in the hospital on my infectious disease elective. E.g. "MRSA is not typical flora." I'd suggest removing this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.68.142.183 (talk) 03:04, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

where 'Microbiota', even if less commonly known, is more accurate, and thus appropriate. - is probably why it was mentioned. If this is an encyclopedic entry, the colloquial use certainly deserves mention, but shouldn't the article be written with the accurate description? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.241.137.116 (talk) 16:22, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Microbiota is the correct term, micro-flora remains from a time when bacteria were misclassified. Most microbiologist use the term microbiota. It takes time to change the usage in other fields, but this encyclopedia should use it correctly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tlooft (talk • contribs) 21:13, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

If I'm not mistaken, bacteria are neither plants nor animals. Same goes for fungi and protists. "Flora" has become the default term when talking about the bunch of them, perhaps by common usage, or maybe mis-usage. Everyone knows what it means, in this context, and scientific publications follow this convention. I wouldn't worry about it...66.53.97.18 (talk) 07:13, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

The hyper link to the word "microbiota" is not relevant, and refers to a different topic with a similar name. Please have the link removed or create a link redirecting to the appropriate page.(apparently I can't edit the top section myself.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jinalkothari (talk • contribs) 10:55, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

It's also incorrect to call "gut" an adjective here. It is a noun. (It can also be a verb, as in "gut a fish", but not an adjective.) Nculwell (talk) 16:23, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

• Is it possible to redirect gut flora to gut microbiota (and not the reverse) ? I think that microbiota is more relevant than flora and largely accepted and use in the scientific community. You could have a look over citations and you will see that microbiota is more use than flora. I also propose to create a microbiota pages related microflora in a "ecologic" section. How this could be set up ? Halby — Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.102.119.226 (talk) 08:24, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Human centric

This article is too human centric for the title. Until one follows the references, it is not at all clear which species are being discussed, but the majority of the time it's the effects of the human gut flora that are being described. I'm not sure that this is appropriate for a general biology article, but short of a major edit and re-distribution of content I don't think there's anything that can be done. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.156.124.75 (talk) 23:31, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Minor fix, additions, and changes

There needs to be more elaboration on the "Weight Loss" section about what specific gut flora is seen in obese patients compared to lean patients so that viewers of this article are able to make sense of what bacteria correlate with weight loss or gain.Jasani.5 (talk) 08:52, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Pharmabiotics section talks about how probiotics may improve health. But the section should elaborate on how probiotics positively affect the body by restoring homeostasis of the gut flora, introducing the gut to more good than bad bacteria, etc. also how it can interact such as: directly with intestinal microbiota, epithelium, intestinal mucosal layer; and can effect outside the GI tract.Jasani.5 (talk) 08:52, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

I think the addition of a section about "The History/Evolution of Gut Flora" in humans as it continuously evolves to adapt to the climate, diet, and environmental changes would be very beneficial to learn. So viewers of this article can gain an understanding in how we could change certain variables in our lives today to fix any malicious problems occurring in one's body due to an irregular unhealthy gut flora.Jasani.5 (talk) 08:52, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

This sentence doesn't make any sense

"...older people lose their microbiota simply because they just stop taking care of them, by eating improperly or being unhealthy (especially difficult to do as one becomes older), and their bodies lose the ability and energy in order to maintain the flora."

you were right about that. fixed it. thank you. Jytdog (talk) 03:22, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Gibberish

In the "Description" section, the following paragraph appears:

The compositions of microbiota rely on several factors like host diet, colonization history, and immune status.[15] Some microbes are better suited to complement specific metabolic enzymes over others. For example, Bacteroides change how they breakdown carbohydrates depending on if they received the right amount of certain substrates.[16] For instance, if humans began to fast extensively or discontinue feeding their bodies it would increase their intestinal permeability and in turn, hyper-stimulate the immune system and translocate the bacteria. This speaks nothing, but havoc and destruction on one’s body.

What the hell does "This speaks nothing, but havoc and destruction on one’s body." mean ?

VexorAbVikipædia (talk) 17:40, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree that it doesn't make sense, so I have removed the last two sentences from the paragraph. If anyone can figure out what was intended, they can rewrite it so that it is meaningful and add it back in. Deli nk (talk) 19:24, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Microbiota (disambiguation) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 20:15, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Redirect from "gut microbiome"

We should redirect from gut microbiome as currently happens from gut microbiota. SageRad (talk) 01:02, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Done! SageRad (talk) 01:16, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia should have a microbiome page as the definition is not the same as microbiota. Microbiome refers to the sum total of all the genes of the microbiota. Granted, the terms are becoming interchangeable. I guess the onus would be on me to sort this out and start a page if necessary. McortNGHH (talk) 19:35, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

I do agree with the technical definition, but in practice, the term "gut microbiome" is used probably more often to express the whole distal gut / microbiota population combination acting effectively as an organ within the mammalian superorganism. This distinction is explained in the first paragraph of this article, so i feel comfortable with this redirect. SageRad (talk) 19:39, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

Connection with autism, anxiety, and depression

We should include some content about the relationship of the gut microbiome with symptoms of autism, anxiety, and depression, as is described in this article in The Atlantic. Primary articles referenced include [2] [3] [4] [5]. SageRad (talk) 01:06, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree with SageRed. Also, it seems like most of the references are getting outdated. I imagine most are from the early days of the page - (thanks to Delldot). There is also the famous obese mouse research (http://microbiome.mit.edu/2016/01/26/microbiome-obesity/). McortNGHH (talk) 19:35, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

Health content sourced to Mercola, CNN, and primary sources

KailynKoh this and this are not appropriately sourced. Editing about health in Wikipedia is driven by MEDRS compliant sources, not Mercola or MSM. Please read MEDRS. If you don't understand it, please get help. Jytdog (talk) 15:29, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Buzzwords Tag

Hello there! In October 2015 this article was tagged as "contain[ing] a large number of buzzwords". Could someone please clarify what exactly is the problem that they would like fixed. The buzzwords tag is fairly vague. Thanks!! Ajpolino (talk) 05:29, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

How many species are in the gut?

Hello all! In the "Description" section it is stated that "Somewhere between 300 and 1000 different species live in the gut, with most estimates at about 500." 5 references are given for this:

• Guarner & Malagelada (2003) - "The intestinal habitat of an individual contains 300–500 different species of bacteria"
• Sears (2005) - "Comprised of 500 to 1000 bacterial species with two to four million genes, the microbiome..." (note she is talking specifically about the gut here. Context not evident from my quote).
• Steinhoff (2005) - "bacteria belonging to more than 500 different bacterial species live in..."
• O'Hara (2006) - I can't find any number given here, though admittedly I only skimmed the paper and searched for the word "species".
• Gibson (2004) - "The colon is the most densely populated region of the gastrointestinal tract and harbours an estimated 500 different bacterial species."

I'm all for references, but this seems a bit like reference overkill (also none of these papers state that most estimates are around 500). I removed the O'Hara reference (because I'm not sure it supports the statement) as well as Gibson and Steinhoff (because the papers are about different topics than this paragraph is concerned with). I kept Guarner and Sears because the papers are most relevant to the sentence they're being used as references for. So if someone wants to know more, these will probably be the best sources for them to follow up. If anyone disagrees or has any thoughts, I'd be happy to talk about it. Cheers! Ajpolino (talk) 16:44, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

The Garner and Malagelada paper and Sears paper are both reviews, they both cite other sources for their estimates. And both these reviews mention the estimated number of genes in the microbiome in the very same sentence. Garner and Malagelada quote a couple of sources from the mid-80s, Sears quotes a Hooper and Gordon paper from 2005. Both of these reviews are only concerned with human gut flora. Drchriswilliams (talk) 17:17, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

How many species are in the gut?

Hello all! In the "Description" section it is stated that "Somewhere between 300 and 1000 different species live in the gut, with most estimates at about 500." 5 references are given for this:

• Guarner & Malagelada (2003) - "The intestinal habitat of an individual contains 300–500 different species of bacteria"
• Sears (2005) - "Comprised of 500 to 1000 bacterial species with two to four million genes, the microbiome..." (note she is talking specifically about the gut here. Context not evident from my quote).
• Steinhoff (2005) - "bacteria belonging to more than 500 different bacterial species live in..."
• O'Hara (2006) - I can't find any number given here, though admittedly I only skimmed the paper and searched for the word "species".
• Gibson (2004) - "The colon is the most densely populated region of the gastrointestinal tract and harbours an estimated 500 different bacterial species."

I'm all for references, but this seems a bit like reference overkill (also none of these papers state that most estimates are around 500). I removed the O'Hara reference (because I'm not sure it supports the statement) as well as Gibson and Steinhoff (because the papers are about different topics than this paragraph is concerned with). I kept Guarner and Sears because the papers are most relevant to the sentence they're being used as references for. So if someone wants to know more, these will probably be the best sources for them to follow up. If anyone disagrees or has any thoughts, I'd be happy to talk about it. Cheers! Ajpolino (talk) 16:44, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

The Garner and Malagelada paper and Sears paper are both reviews, they both cite other sources for their estimates. And both these reviews mention the estimated number of genes in the microbiome in the very same sentence. Garner and Malagelada quote a couple of sources from the mid-80s, Sears quotes a Hooper and Gordon paper from 2005. Both of these reviews are only concerned with human gut flora. Drchriswilliams (talk) 17:17, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

content issue

about this:

Populations of bacteria within the gastrointestinal tract are different than those in healthy individuals. Treatment with probiotic strains of bacteria has shown to be effective, though not all strains of microorganisms confer the same benefit. Probiotic strains of bacteria have been shown to treat Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Chronic Idiopathic Constipation.

References

What does "Populations of bacteria within the gastrointestinal tract are different than those in healthy individuals." mean? What is being compared? And please use pmids in refs. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 01:05, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Almost always, what's being compared is the population makeup at the family, order, or phylum level, reconstructed by 16S ribosomal RNA: e.g. 60% Bacteriodales, 15% Firmicutes, 5% Enterobacteria, etc. One has to be careful with "those in healthy individuals", because there's a very wide range of "healthy" gut microbiomes, governed by history, immune cross-talk, diet, and much more. I'm no expert, but I did a lot of reading on this last semester and can give this article some attention in the near future. FourViolas (talk) 19:00, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

You are not answering the question either, fwiw. Jytdog (talk) 21:10, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Sorry. The cited review states that The cause of these functional bowel disorders remains unclear, but visceral hypersensitivity (4,5), disturbances in gastrointestinal (GI) flora (6,7), and chronic immune activation leading to a low-grade mucosal inflammation (8,9,10,11) have all been implicated in the pathogenesis of [irritable bowel syndrome and chronic idiopathic constipation]. References 6 and 7 are to Kassinen et al 2007 and Attaluri et al 2010, which show respectively that 16S-determined gut bacterial population structure is significantly different, and distinguishable a postiori by Bayesian analysis, from population structure in non-IBS controls; and that the presence of methanogenic bacteria (in phenotypically-detectable numbers) in the gut is associated with non-IBS constipation.

So, again, what's being compared is which kinds of gut bacteria are present in eubiotic vs. disease states, and in what proportion. FourViolas (talk) 03:27, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

yep. Jytdog (talk) 07:50, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

Human microbiota

Content about gut flora cropped up in the Human microbiota article that was not here. Am merging that content here and will blend it, then will up date the lead of this article, then will copy the lead of this article to Human microbiota#Gut flora with a link to main, per WP:SYNC Jytdog (talk) 20:25, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

NEJM

doi:10.1056/NEJMra1600266 JFW | T@lk 09:52, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Enterotype

Hi. This is just a suggestion on the Enterotype section that you could put more information there. Perhaps talk about the three human enterotypes that have been discovered, what they are and what they do, if that information is available. BugNerd22 (talk) 19:52, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

GAP syndrome

Greetings

I've read a book about GAP syndrome (Gut and Psychology syndrome). It's a disorder characterized by digestive problems. There are nutrients from foods that cannot be digested normally in the gut, and are mostly rejected. People with GAP syndrome have very small numbers of good bacteria, so it will be difficult for them to digest almost all foods. People also refuse lots of foods and restrict their own meals (including starchy foods and sweets). They also have a different taste because of bad bacteria.

Please take a look at a website http://www.gaps.me/ and let me know if it's appropriate to add details about GAP syndrome on this article. Thanks

79.101.58.125 (talk) 11:17, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for checking in! Unfortunately, we have a strict policy on acceptable sources for medical information, and that website and the book written by its author don't meet the standard. Essentially, we're supposed to use medical textbooks, academic review articles, and official health policy statements.

The good news is that there have been a lot of these acceptable sources published about links between gut microbiota and psychology. In fact, we have an entire article on this, under the technical name Gut-brain axis. There are short summaries of that article in two places in this article: Gut_flora#Gut-brain_axis, for healthy function, and Gut_flora#Neuropsychiatric, for dysfunction. FourViolas (talk) 12:41, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Increasing specific bacteria population in the gut

I was wondering whether some specific (beneficial) bacteria can be increased in the body. In particular, people that have problems digesting food high in fibres may have reduced Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron and/or Methanobrevibacterium smithii numbers.

Another useful bacteria is Helicobacter pylori which influences 2 hormones that influence appetite (so if there are not sufficient amounts of this bacteria, it will cause people to eat more). As such, it could be an important tool against obesity and food waste. Reducing the numbers of Akkermansia muciniphila (which increases the gastric mucosa) would also be helpful for this.

I was wondering whether there is any way to increase the numbers of these populations. Can this be done by just consuming particular foods (for example, yeast is often present on grape peels in nature) ? Also, I'm not sure whether there is a simple way to analyse the population numbers of these bacteria at home (to be certain whether the population numbers of these are indeed too low or not)?

References

--— Preceding unsigned comment added by KVDP (talk • contribs) 09:04, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

This talk page is for discussing improvements to the article. You can ask questions like this at Help:Reference desk. Jytdog (talk) 00:40, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

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Change of the term "Flora"

Hi, I'm new to editing here, but felt like I needed to come with some input. The term "flora" is an old and outdated term which refers to the plant kingdom. The correct term is "microbiota" so I feel like this should be generally changed (maybe with a comment about an outdated name is "flora"). But I am not used to editing the pages and do not want to mess with any guidelines about articles etc. So I'm just bring this suggestion up, since it would greatly help the general understanding of what the terms actually mean. Kirknel (talk) 08:42, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

"Flora" is the accurate, established article title and is interchangeable with "microbiota". According to a PubMed search, "bacterial flora" as a term has some 14,000 articles published over the last century, so is established in history; Search "bacterial flora" in PubMed. The term, "microbiota", is used 71 times in the existing article, so is adequately represented. --Zefr (talk) 13:22, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

I am not aware of the education level of either of you, and I am not saying that offensively, simply trying to understand where "Zefr" is coming from in his comment. I have worked with several microbiologists whose research includes that with Nobel laureates and while flora is an adequate term it is not the appropriate term. I think anyone with a degree in some discipline including biology would see the potential to use the terms as synonyms but there is a clear difference. Please change the title to replace flora with bacteria or microbiota to ameliorate any confusion.Lharris15328 (talk) 22:01, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

There is a learning curve to working in Wikipedia. Wikipedia (WP) is not based on random people showing up and claiming expertise. (See On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog and Essjay controversy.) WP is based on reliable sources. We don't care that you say you have some distant connection to Nobel laureates; we have no way of checking and don't want to have anyway of checking. Jytdog (talk) 22:07, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

• Kirknel (talk · contribs), Zefr (talk · contribs), Lharris15328 (talk · contribs) - I've read enough of the work in this field to have seen academics actively discouraging the term "flora" in the literature, but I'm having trouble pulling up the citations. Regardless, I support a rename - flora is clearly not a technically precise term. If any of you manage to find a citation supporting one way or the other, feel free to drop one it in here. II | (t - c) 09:30, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

ImperfectlyInformed: As indicated above, review this for published medical research on "bacterial flora" and this on "gut flora"; for the article title as "gut flora", add the word "review" to a PubMed search and one gets this. It's easy to see "gut flora" and "gut microbiota" are equivalent terms, and this debate about the article title is unproductive. --Zefr (talk) 12:49, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

Zefr (talk · contribs), given two terms which are mostly used interchangeably, why go with the one which is slightly more incorrect? As I said, I've seen experts in the literature actively discourage the term "gut flora", altho I don't remember exactly where (if I see the citations, I'll drop them here). In any case, I'm not up for debating this too much either - I believe that this article will ultimately be renamed, even if it takes a few decades for "gut flora" to fall out of favor as younger scientists use more precise language. II | (t - c) 17:51, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

I don't think it's urgent to rename the page, because both terms are in widespread use and there is no clear WP:COMMONNAME, but it's true that "flora" seems to be increasingly deprecated. Some explicit sources for this (not necessarily those ImperfectlyInformed has in mind) include

• Martinez-Moya et al. International Immunopharmacology 2013 : the gastrointestinal tract is the natural environment for a complex mixture of bacteria and other microorganisms, known as the flora or, more properly, microbiota
• Khanna Arora et al. Indian Journal of Medical Research 2015: The more commonly used term ‘microflora’ or microbial ‘flora’ is actually a misnomer as it technically means the plant or vegetable microbial community of a region. Recently, the term ‘microbiota’ has become prevalent which literally means all the living organisms of a region
• Liang et al Gut Pathogens 2018: The collection of such microorganisms is called microbiome or microbiota. Microflora has also been used but flora represents the kingdom Plantae therefore it is a misnomer.

FourViolas (talk) 08:15, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

Diet and Age

This article could be made less anthropocentric by broadening the scope of what is discussed in the diet and age sections. Different species have different diets which contributes to microbiome diversity. Additionally, geography can play a role in diet and therefore heavily influence gut flora composition within and between species. Juniperusvirginiana (talk) 17:42, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Addition to the "other animals" section

I think that having more information on other animal micro flora, in the paragraph it talks about insects, but to further elaborate on insects or even more animals would be a great addition to this topic. There are many animals out there, so I'm sure more information can be gathered. --TrashPanda7 (talk) 17:43, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Pregnancy

More information would be helpful discussing a healthy diet for the mother during her pregnancy, since the newborn's gut biota resembles the mothers first-trimester.GreatSmokyMountains (talk) 17:48, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Addition to Role of Disease

Hello, A lot of new research has been done looking into diseases and other conditions and the role gut flora plays in them. This new research would be a great addition to the page. some aspects that are a possibility of being added would be Dementia and Celiac Disease and the role of Microbiota in the gut and how they affect these diseases. --Cuphea (talk) 17:46, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Inappropriate. We are not writing updates for a research paper, but rather the best-established facts according to high-quality reviews, as described in WP:MEDRS. Please read and practice the principles of that guide for making contributions to the encyclopedia -- pass this advice along to your classmates. --Zefr (talk) 17:53, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Addition to Alterations in flora balance

A subsection about the effects of smoking on gut flora may be a good addition to Alterations in flora balance. Multiple studies using human and animal models noted a relationship between exposure to cigarette smoke and dysbiosis.

A good review article can be found here: Savin, Z., Kivity, S., Yonath, H., & Yehuda, S. (2018). Smoking and the intestinal microbiome. Archives of Microbiology, 200(5), 677-684. doi:10.1007/s00203-018-1506-2 Curious biologist (talk) 16:07, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

30% more calories claim not well references - please improve

The claim "30% more calories just to remain the same weight as their normal counterparts" cites only a review not the original research. That's already bad because it sends your readers on a wild goose chase, going from reference to reference. Plus, the review in question when searched for "30%" gives no hits. Please cite the original work instead of Chinese whispers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.2.81.97 (talk) 08:54, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Mental Health and Gut bacteria

Gut bacteria can have adverse affects on not on;ly our physical health, but also on mental health issues. No where is this more apparent than in the gut-brain axis. The bidirectional communication between the central nervous system and gut microbiota, referred to as the gut-brain-axis, has been of significant interest in recent years. Increasing evidence has associated gut microbiota to both gastrointestinal and extragastrointestinal diseases. Dysbiosis and inflammation of the gut have been linked to causing several mental illnesses including anxiety and depression, which are prevalent in society today. Probiotics have the ability to restore normal microbial balance, and therefore have a potential role in the treatment and prevention of anxiety and depression. This review aims to discuss the development of the gut microbiota, the linkage of dysbiosis to anxiety and depression, and possible applications of probiotics to reduce symptoms. The bidirectional link between the brain, gut, and microbiome has come to the forefront of the medical research community in the past few years. The growing amount of evidence substantiating this link indicates it will be a valuable area for future medical and nutritional practice, and research. This review demonstrates the importance of a healthy microbiome, particularly the gut microbiota, for patients suffering from anxiety and depression, as dysbiosis and inflammation in the CNS have been linked as potential causes of mental illness. Of note, studies have shown that probiotics effectively mitigated anxiety and depressive symptoms similar to conventional prescription medications. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Robert Haake (talk • contribs) 17:21, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Incidence of bacterial species in gut

The reference for the table that lists the incidences of bacterial species in a healthy human gut (Kenneth Todar (2012). "The Normal Bacterial Flora of Humans". Todar's Online Textbook of Bacteriology. Retrieved June 25, 2016.) is insufficient evidence. The source does not provide any references itself for these data. I will email the author for this source. Scott Daniel (talk) 21:15, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Moving article

This article is almost entirely about humans, so the scope needs to be refined. As the article on the "gut" is gastrointestinal tract, this term should probably be changed to that for consistency. Lastly, "flora" doesn't have an associated omics term (e.g., microbiota vs microbiomics), so I'm moving this article to human gastrointestinal microbiota to address all three of these. All current incoming links from titles that don't contain "human" in the term should probably be redirected to the #Other animals section of this article since that's really the only part of this article that covers the topic in generality. There's too much content on humans here for it to be feasible to include (per WP:SIZE) in the same article as one which covers the topic for animals in general. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 16:09, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Also, this article misuses the term "microbiota" to refer to the microbiome (i.e., the collection of all microbiota in an environment) in some instances, but I don't really feel like fixing it. If anyone wants to do that, kudos. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 16:19, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Seppi333, I moved this article back to "Gut flora." Hear me out. The matter concerns WP:Common name and WP:NCMED. The common name for this topic is "gut flora." When it comes to the most common scientific/medical name, it's maybe "gut microbiota" now. Whatever the case, the common name is not "human gastrointestinal microbiota." And having the article titled "Human gastrointestinal microbiota" wasn't helping anything since "gut flora" still redirected here and a reader looking for content on other animals might be put off to see the "Human gastrointestinal microbiota" title and click away before taking the time to observe that the article has an "Other animals" section. Our medical articles don't have "human" in the title just because the topic also concerns other animals. We simply have an "Other animals" section and/or create a spin-off article specifically for that aspect if a spin-off article is warranted. For example, we have a Pregnancy article and a Pregnancy (mammals) and Pregnancy in fish article. I don't see that "human" needs to be in the title of the gut flora article any more than I see the need for the Cancer article to be titled "Human cancer" because cancer is not restricted to humans. Granted, cancer is much more of a human-centric topic than gut flora is, but the article being titled "Cancer" instead of "Human cancer" is still an example of standard practice.

Looking at Talk:Gut flora/Archive 1, I know that readers have been put off by the article being titled "gut flora" while the article is mainly about humans. But as noted in one of those discussions, the literature on this topic is human-centric. I'm not aware of that having changed. For discussion specifically about the term "flora", see Talk:Gut flora/Archive 1#Change of the term "Flora". Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 06:49, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Don’t mind the rename, but we need to specify human. This is technically an anatomy article within the context of medicine; my move summary explains - or at least exemplifies - why “human” should be specified in the title. That being said, this article is more an MCB-related topic than a medical one. If we want to discuss animals more generally, we’re going to have to break it down into microbiota of groups of animals, classified by their primary food sources (grass-feeding animals, other herbivores, pure carnivores, etc. and then of course humans who eat basically everything. Reason being: different microbes reside in those food sources and diet strongly determines what microbial species proliferate in the GI tract. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 16:31, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Seppi, per what I stated above about needlessly putting "human" in the title, I can't agree on the "add human to the title" matter. An anatomy article? Well, as is known, anatomy is a branch within medicine, which is why we have an anatomy section at WP:MEDMOS and adhere to WP:MEDRS for some aspects of sourcing anatomy material. For anatomy articles, we also don't unnecessarily add "human" to the title. See Talk:Vulva/Archive 5#Requested move 11 June 2020 and this about unnecessarily putting "human" in a title. So I reverted your latest addition of "human" to the title. Adding the word "human" to the title makes the article more restrictive, not less. I mean, if it's about humans, then why is the "Other animals" section there? Simply as a comparative anatomy matter? I'll go ahead and start a WP:Requested moves discussion. I'll alert WP:WikiProject Microbiology, WP:Med and WP:Anatomy to this discussion. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 05:57, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

If you want to keep the article titles consistent, by all means, remove the "Human". I don't particularly care anyway. Just keep in mind that you will be broadening the scope of this article to an extent that it encompasses information on gut flora which is not currently covered on the page, is not relevant to the human GI tract, but might end up getting dumped in the body of this article anyway.

FWIW, the composition of the gut flora should be structured under sections titled "Bacteriome", "Fungome"/"Mycobiome", and "Virome". My company will end up generating a massive and constantly growing database on each of these omes at the very least for 3 different human GI biofluids: saliva from the mouth, gastric juice from the stomach, and feces. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 13:35, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

If an editor adds non-human animal gut flora material to any part of the article that is not the "Other animals" section or mixes in content about non-human animals with the content about humans in a way that is confusing or doesn't distinguish, then that content should be moved to the "Other animals" section (if WP:Due). This is what we do with other anatomy and medical articles that are human-centric. If by "you will be broadening the scope of this article to an extent that it encompasses information on gut flora which is not currently covered on the page, is not relevant to the human GI tract, but might end up getting dumped in the body of this article anyway", you are not just talking about non-human animal content, then perhaps you want to clarify? The article is called "Gut flora." So things characterized as gut flora or that are about the topic will go in this article if WP:Due and not excessive.

I have nothing against structuring the article in a way that is best. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 07:09, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

perhaps you want to clarify E.g., ruminants and the high content of soil bacteria that reside in their GI microbiomes are very rarely quantitated - and at very low levels if detected - in the human GI tract. Clostridium sporogenes comes to mind as a notable example of one of them. Also, on reconsideration, omitting human from the title seems fine. There seems to be a consensus below anyway. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 14:28, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 4 September 2020: Add "human" to the title?

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: consensus against move. —usernamekiran (talk) 06:55, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

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Gut flora → Human gut flora – There is discussion above whether "Human" should be added to the title so that the article is titled "Human gut flora." The reason for this is that the article is human-centric. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 05:57, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose. My arguments against moving the article to add "human" to the title are as follows: Two things I've considered are WP:Common name and WP:NCMED. The common name for this topic is "gut flora." When it comes to the most common scientific/medical name, it's maybe "gut microbiota" now. Whatever the case, the common name doesn't have "human" in the title. Another thing is that having "human" in the title doesn't help anything since "gut flora" will still redirect here and a reader looking for content on other animals might be put off to see "human" in the title and click away before taking the time to observe that the article has an "Other animals" section. Adding the word "human" to the title makes the article more restrictive, not less. I mean, if it's about humans, then why is the "Other animals" section there? Simply as a comparative anatomy matter? Our medical (including anatomy) articles don't have "human" in the title just because the topic also concerns other animals. We simply have an "Other animals" section and/or create a spin-off article specifically for that aspect if a spin-off article is warranted. For example, we have a Pregnancy article and a Pregnancy (mammals) and Pregnancy in fish article. I don't see that "human" needs to be in the title of the gut flora article any more than I see the need for the Cancer article to be titled "Human cancer" because cancer is not restricted to humans. Granted, cancer is much more of a human-centric topic than gut flora is, but the article being titled "Cancer" instead of "Human cancer" is still an example of standard practice. Although some readers have been put off by the article being titled "gut flora" while the article is mainly about humans, it's been mentioned before on this talk page that the literature on this topic is human-centric. I'm not aware of that having changed. Also see Talk:Vulva/Archive 5#Requested move 11 June 2020 about not unnecessarily moving an article to add "human" to the title. There is no good reason to move Vulva to "Human vulva." Similar applies in this case. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 05:57, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per per WP:SPLIT and WP:NOTFINISHED. There is not enough content to justify a move /split to the needlessly disambiguated title "Human gut flora". This reflects the organisation of all of our medicine and anatomy articles. When there is enough content uploaded to justify a move, then the article can be moved. There isn't enough now because we are WP:NOTFINISHED. Further editing to the article is welcome. --Tom (LT) (talk) 07:46, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per Flyer22 Frozen's argument above ("Cancer" vs "Human cancer", "Vulva" vs. "Human vulva"). We don't need overly precise titles to guide our all-human readership. The "other animals" section can guide readers to the much more niche topics of the microbial denizens of other organisms. Ajpolino (talk) 17:03, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
• oppose per Flyer22--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:24, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose Convincing arguments above that Wikipedia is human centric. II | (t - c) 20:51, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. Instead, create new content on different cases and spin out when required by article size. I expect the following should get separate coverage: carnivorous, omnivorous and herbivorous mammals, lizards, birds, sea creatures, carrion eaters. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:20, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose, agreeing with the well-debated issues and examples by Flyer22 Frozen. Zefr (talk) 15:31, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose so far non-human animals don't use Wikipedia. cookie monster (2020) 755 04:17, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Requested move 3 March 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved (non-admin closure) (t · c) buidhe 18:44, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

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Gut flora → Gut microbiota – Has largely replaced older name of gut flora evidenced by ngrams and google search Iztwoz (talk) 14:43, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

• Support My feeling would have been that "gut microbiota" is the more common term these days by a factor of 3 or so, and a bit of search engine dredging bears this out. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 18:23, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
• Support per WP:COMMONNAME. I was surprised just how much more common the proposed title has become based on the Google ngrams[6]. Rreagan007 (talk) 19:32, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Updates

Some sections of this article probably need some updating. Fishgibblets (talk) 21:07, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

I noticed that many of the citations in the overview section (particularly those involving numbers) date back to the oughts. In the 20 years since those citations we have learned a lot more about the microbiome, and discovered a lot of species. Early on, all of the microbiome data was from a handful of countries. We have since examined a lot more metagenomic data. Fishgibblets (talk) 21:09, 12 April 2024 (UTC)