GI highlights from the literature

Basic scienceDietary emulsifiers: impact on host microbiota and metabolic dysregulation Chassaing B, Koren O, Goodrich JK, et al. Dietary emulsifiers impact the mouse gut microbiota promoting colitis and metabolic syndrome. Nature 2015;519:92–6. There has been a steady rise in our consumption of food additives over the past 50 years, with many of these constituents having limited effective testing for their impact on human health. It has been suggested that emulsifiers, detergent-like molecules, added to processed foods, can promote increased bacterial translocation across epithelia and be a plausible cause for the increase in IBD cases seen over a similar time period. This concept was tested by Chassaing et al. They reported that relatively low levels of two commonly used dietary emulsifiers, carboxymethylcellulose and polysorbate-80, induced low-grade inflammation and metabolic dysfunction in wild-type mice, while promoting robust colitis in colitis susceptible interleukin (IL)-10 knockout mice. Emulsifier-induced metabolic syndrome was...
Source: Gut - Category: Gastroenterology Authors: Tags: JournalScan Source Type: research