410: Microbes Modify Muscle Measurement

This episode: Mice that got a microbe transplant from humans with
higher physical function performed better in certain ways than
mice receiving microbes from humans with lower physical function!


Download Episode (6.7 MB, 9.8 minutes)

Show notes:
Microbe of the episode: Stenotrophomonas maltophila

News item

Takeaways
Our bodies and our microbe communities are closely
interconnected, with effects going both ways. Studies had
previously shown that making changes to the microbe communities
of mice could even affect the physical function and body
composition of the mice.

This study aimed at addressing the same question in humans. There
were certain consistent differences in microbial communities
between elderly people with high ability to function physically,
compared with low functioning people. These differences carried
over in transplants of microbes from people to mice, and mice
receiving microbes from high-functioning humans did better in
tests of grip strength than mice receiving microbes from
low-functioning people.

Journal Paper:
Fielding RA, Reeves AR, Jasuja R, Liu C, Barrett BB, Lustgarten
MS. 2019. Muscle strength is increased in mice that are colonized
with microbiota from high-functioning older adults. Exp Gerontol
127:110722.


Other interesting stories:



Engineering better viruses for phage therapy

Using staph bacteria to clean up metal-polluted
environments (paper)




 


Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot
com. Thanks for listening!


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