What Can AI Tell Us About Gut Health?
Researchers using machine learning discovered that variations in microbial load in the gut, influenced by age, sex, diet, and more, play a significant role in disease-related bacterial presence.
This new insight challenges the conventional belief that certain microbes directly cause diseases like IBD or colorectal cancer. Instead, symptoms such as diarrhea and constipation are more closely linked to changes in microbial load. The findings, based on vast metagenomic datasets, could reshape approaches to diagnosing and understanding gastrointestinal diseases.
Microbial Load and Disease: Many bacterial-linked illnesses, like inflammatory bowel disease and colorectal cancer, are often associated with an overgrowth of certain gut bacteria seen as harmful. However, when researchers used a machine learning algorithm to predict the density of microbes (known as microbial load) from gut microbiome samples, they discovered that changes in microbial load itself—not the disease—may drive the presence of bacteria associated with these illnesses.
Excerpted from Sci Tech Daily
