From: mha23x@gmail.com   
      
   Gut feelings: family history influences what's in our intestines, U of T   
   research shows    
      
   Colon biopsy showing ulcerative colitis    
   Colon biopsy of chronic ulcerative colitis, Active Phase (Photo by Ed Uthman   
   via flickr)    
   What triggers the difficult and painful set of conditions known as   
   inflammatory bowel disease? How can we understand the influence of genetics as   
   well as the environmental factors?    
      
   Those questions are at the heart of Professor Kenneth Croitoru’s   
   gastroenterology research with the Genetics, Environmental, Microbial (GEM)   
   Project, a major international study led by Croitoru at the University of   
   Toronto and Sinai Health System to    
   determine the cause of inflammatory bowel disease, such as Crohn’s disease   
   and ulcerative colitis.    
      
   Read National Post story on Prof. Croitoru's research into stool transplants   
   helping obese people lose weight    
   That work took a step forward recently with a study published in Nature   
   Genetics, which showed that one-third of the naturally occurring bacteria   
   found in participants’ guts – known as the microbiome – had a   
   heritability factor. In addition, four    
   specific genes were found to have links to specific bacteria types within   
   participants’ gut microbiome. This suggests that our genetics influence what   
   types of bacteria may inhabit our gut.    
      
   The study holds promise for the use of stool transplants to combat obesity,   
   according to the report in the National Post.    
      
      
                                                               Professor Ken   
   Croitoru (photo from Sinai Health System)    
      
   “As an inflammatory bowel disease specialist, I have seen a consistent   
   pattern of heritability of this devastating disease," said Croitoru, who is a   
   professor of medicine at U of T. "This study sets the stage to define how our   
   genetic makeup and its    
   relation to our gut microbiome may explain disease. The challenge ahead of us   
   is to explore the impact of that genetic link, and how we can use this new   
   information to prevent and treat disease.”    
      
   Croitoru is also a clinician-scientist in Sinai Health System’s Zane Cohen   
   Centre for Digestive Research and scientist with the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum   
   Research Institute. The GEM Project is collecting data from healthy family   
   members of patients with IBD    
   to track those who develop the disease. The data from GEM was used in this   
   microbiome study.    
      
   “The genetic analysis of the microbiome from healthy subjects gives us   
   important insight into the possible interplay between our genetic makeup and   
   microbial factors that influence health and disease,” said study co-author   
   Andrew Paterson, a senior    
   scientist at the SickKids Research Institute and a professor at U of T’s   
   Dalla Lana School of Public Health. “Understanding these possible   
   interactions may have implications for many diseases associated with altered   
   microbiome.”    
      
   Funding for this study was provided by the Canadian Institutes of Health   
   Research (CIHR), Crohn’s and Colitis Canada (CCC) and The Leona M. and Harry   
   B. Helmsley Charitable Trust.    
      
      
      
      
   https://www.utoronto.ca/news/gut-feelings-family-history-influen   
   es-what-s-our-intestines-u-t-research-shows   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)