Can Your Gut Bacteria Affect Your Longevity?
The gut microbiome – the collection of microorganisms that live in the human digestive tracts – is an integral part of the body. However, its relevance in the human aging process and its features that differentiate a healthy one from an unhealthy one is unclear. Finding answers is crucial to determining how the microbiome relates to age-related health problems.
That’s why Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) researchers have been collaborating with other scientists to identify the distinct signatures in the gut microbiome linked with either healthy or unhealthy aging trajectories. Making the connections could lead to ways of predicting survival in a population of older individuals. And the team has reported detecting such signatures. Their study identified a unique gut microbiome as a factor determining healthy aging.
Excerpted from Intelligent Living
