An international team of scientists working with the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor have “decoded yeast’s relationship with good bacteria.”br
What does this mean to us regular non-Ph.D. folks? It may mean quite a bit. The study has found that bacteria that have evolved to eat their way through yeast in the human gut (that’s what scientists actually call it) could support the development of new prebiotic medicines to help people suffering from bowel problems such as Crohn’s disease as well as autoimmune diseases.
The study has identified the complex machinery that targets yeast carbohydrates and, thus, provides a better understanding of how our unique intestinal soup of bacteria has the capacity to obtain nutrients from our highly varied diet. This could all lead to developing sophisticated prebiotics that target the growth of specific beneficial bacteria.
--Sarah Hagerty
