The number of studies that have found a link between a disease and a specific gut microbiome composition seems to be ever increasing. Until recently, though, almost all these studies have looked at single diseases in isolation. But most people tend to have more than one health complaint at a time – “comorbidities”, in medical parlance.
For our
latest study, published in Nature Communications, we studied the gut microbe composition across a range of diseases. What we found surprised us. The kind of microbes (such as
Enterobacteriaceae) that increased in one disease, increased in pretty much all 38 diseases studied. Also, some microbes that might be considered to be “healthy gut microbes”, were reduced in all 38 diseases studied.
