A very warm welcome to the Analutos blog. Once a month, or thereabouts, we’re going to talk about some of the science and technology which drives us on to do what we do here at Analutos. It’s science, sometimes quite technical science, but hopefully presented in a way that’s both understandable and maybe a little bit fun.
Our inaugural post today is all about the gastrointestinal (GI) tract otherwise known as the gut, and some of the important functions this organ has outside of just eating, digestion and, what comes out the other end.
Gut health
What is the gut? Well, top to bottom it stretches from the oesophagus (the food pipe) to the stomach to the intestines to the bottom end. Along the way, the food and drink we ingest turns into nutrition for the body, with waste products expelled at the end. Sounds easy right? Well, not quite. It’s a feat of biological engineering that’s as alive as we are, with a complexity that means the gut is rightly labelled as our second brain. The gut is alive. Not only because we’re alive but also because it’s teeming with chemicals and enzymes and bacteria and lots of other things which help convert food to energy and, perhaps even, a lot more.
It’s perhaps a little strange to think that we are home to literally trillions of bacteria, fungi and even viruses in our gut. Don’t be too alarmed however. Science has started to realise that our gut visitors or should we say tenants, are not always bad. Indeed, most of the bacteria we carry with us for example, might actually have some rather important jobs in keeping us fit and healthy. Indeed, going back to those ‘second brain’ sentiments, such bacteria play a role in making chemicals more typically associated with our primary brain floating in our skull such as neurotransmitters like serotonin (5-HT). Would it be surprising if we mentioned that there’s more serotonin in your gut than in your brain?
There’s a few ways we can and do see how such bacteria play a part in our health and wellbeing. Sometimes this means looking at what happens to the gut, health and behaviour when certain species of bacteria aren’t present. So similar to what seems to happen when we take antibiotics (designed to kill bacteria), various studies have looked at germ-free models and how health and behaviour seem to be affected in the long term. Other times we can look at the metabolites of some of these gut bacteria, which can and do appear in waste material such as poo(p) or urine.
Gut health testing
At Analutos we’ve developed a urine test that screens for certain chemicals in urine samples that are thought to be by-products from different types of gut bacteria. You could call it a gut test or gut health test but we prefer the term ‘intestinal dysbiosis markers test’ given that we’re looking for specific compounds that may show evidence of dysbiosis, or an imbalance, in gut bacterial species. Importantly, the results of such a test not only provide a snapshot of what might be going on in the gut, they also provide a potential roadmap to do something about it. Remember what we just said about antibiotics? Well, it needn’t be anything as extreme as that to potentially affect the type and amount of various bacteria in our gut. Dietary changes, such as increasing dietary fibre or adding specific types of fermented foods to our diet, can affect the types of bacteria that call us home. Similarly, pre- and probiotics (bacterial and related species taken in capsule or liquid form though to promote better gut health) are another option. The point is that the bacteria that call us home are not necessarily static and can be potentially altered with the right adjustments.
There’s already a lot of scientific evidence on the beneficial role played by the gut bacteria that inhabit our bodies. The idea that manipulating the types of bacteria could improve our health and wellbeing is becoming a tantalising prospect.