“Artificial two-dimensional biological habitats were prepared from porous polymer layers and inoculated with the fungus Penicillium roqueforti to provide a living material. Such composites of classical industrial ingredients and living microorganisms can provide a novel form of functional or smart materials with capability for evolutionary adaptation. We demonstrated a design of such living materials and showed both active (eating) and waiting (dormant, hibernation) states with additional recovery for reinitiation of a new active state by observing the metabolic activity over two full nutrition cycles of the living material (active, hibernation, reactivation). This novel class of living materials can be expected to provide nonclassical solutions in consumer goods such as packaging, indoor surfaces, and in biotechnology.”
Hm. Some really practical uses of microbes – impregnating fabrics to provide bioactive activity.
Read this article…
“Supplements containing a combination of Lactobacillus salivarius and fructo-oligosaccharide for eight weeks were associated with significant reductions in measures of the severity of eczema, compared with a control group receiving only prebiotics, according to findings published in the British Journal of Dermatology.”
In addition to the usual yogurt bugs, I am starting to see salivarius popping up more frequently. It’s from the mouth, by the way.
Read this article…
 When I lived in the US in the 90s, it was hard to find live-culture yogurt in supermarkets (you could find them in natural food stores, of course). The only one I could find was Stonyfield yogurt.
When I lived in Finland, not only were there a bunch of live-culture milk products, but there was one in particular “Valio A+” that was specifically recommended for women to balance their flora.
Now back in the US, it’s hard not to find live-culture yogurt, and some are specifically marketed, yes, for women to balance their flora. Furthermore, the use of live bacterial cultures for health purposes, called probiotics, has become mainstream enough that you can find probiotic supplements for children in the supermarket.
What does this mean?
It means that folks are becoming aware of functional foods, of the importance of microorganism in their diet, and that the feeding desire to find a short cut (a pill rather than eating wholesome yogurt) is always a good business.
I’ve been seeking out all these probiotic products to get an idea of what’s out there, what the message is, and, for me, always on the look out for practical use of microbes, I’ve been trying to understand what microorganisms are in fashion.
OK, so the science behind probiotics is still in progress, so I will not go into that right now.
But, going on the premise that yogurt is the gold standard for beneficial live (with microorganisms) food, then my standard for all probiotic products used for digestive health is Stonyfield’s yogurt. Stonyfield’s has 6 bacteria (S thermophilus, L bulgaricus, L acidophilus, Bifidus, L casei, and L rhamnosus). I’d say that most of the products I have seen have one or more of these bugs. There are some proprietary sub-species and I’ve been pleased to see a few products with S salivarius or some other bacteria.
For me, the type, variety, and number of bacteria in a probiotic food or supplement is key. And I think it’s just snake oil if the product only has one bug.
Nonetheless, I think as probiotics go mainstream, buyers will be more astute as to what they are looking for. Also, I hope that new applications show up, beyond gut and vaginal flora health (I can think of a few).
What I do know, is that doctors are starting to suggest probiotics to patients on antibiotics or with digestive issues such as colitis or C diff.*
And that’s great.
Do you eat probiotic foods or take supplements? Send me pics of the ones you see or take! I could/should create a database of products and attach reviews or commentary. Hm…. not another project….
*Ego boost: A gastroenterologist aked me recently what probiotics I recommended. Ha! My first probiotic consulting gig?
 As you know, I’m always looking for practical uses of microbes. One that I stumbled upon a long while back was “transfaunation”, or, seeding one person’s gut with microbes from another’s. Yes, transfering poop microbes from one to another.
Be an adult. Don’t get grossed out. I’ve read some great papers on the process how our guts get colonized after birth. Also, there are some really interesting papers on how our gut microbes (or lack thereof) are involved in various intestinal disorders. And there are some promising papers on how diet affect the bacterial ecology in the gut. [Sorry, I'll link to the papers in a larger gut related set of posts at some point in the future - you can also just search for gut and microbes in my posts.]
Here’s the basic idea. People suffering from the hardy C. diff bacteria are generally prescribed a powerful antibiotic. Problem is, the drugs don’t just kill the invaders; they also wipe out much of the beneficial bacteria in the gut. With these “good” microorganisms out of the way, any C. diff stragglers have a much easier time regrouping for a second bout of illness. If there were some way to respawn the beneficial bacteria in the intestines, such re-infections could be warded off. Some people, like Ruth, turn to expensive probiotic supplements. (At one point she was spending $350 on them every week.) But in certain cases, a patient who has lost nearly all of her good bacteria will find it nearly impossible to get them back. A fecal transplant seems to work as a sort of mega-probiotic, allowing doctors to repopulate a patient’s intestines with the appropriate microorganisms by placing a robust sample directly into her gut.
Slate had a nice article on the subject (quoted above). It’s a serious subject and for many, the only hope to get a better and healthier bacterial gut fauna (hence the term, transfaunation).
My wife’s a vet and she’s not only heard of this procedure, but performed it on animals. It’s not uncommon to jumpstart an animal’s ability to digest grass by grabbing bugs from one animal and putting it in the right place. And, did you know, some animals eat poop on purpose for this very reason – rabbits, capibaras, hamsters, elephants, termites, pandas, koalas, and hippos – to colonize their gut?
And really, folks eat yogurt to populate their gut with good bacteria. Why not poo bacteria as probiotics? I actually think, as we learn more about our gut fauna, this will be come a more accepted course of action for folks with nasty bowel infections, colitis, or inflammatory bowel diseases.
What do you think?
Image of Kristen Paulson’s Anatomy and Guts Embroidery Hoop Art on Etsy (get your own!)
“For the first time, researchers have sustainably produced hydrogen gas, a potential source of clean energy, using only water and bacteria. The challenge now, scientists say, is to scale up the process to provide large amounts of hydrogen for various purposes, such as fueling vehicles or small generators.”
I keep thinking of how to extract electricity or combustible gas from bacteria. And here someone has improved on the process to extract hydrogen in some usable quantity. Seem like there are still a few technical hurdles, but the most interesting comment to me was that they really can’t use ALL the hydrogen the bacteria produce – the bugs need the hydrogen as well. That got me thinking of milking cows – you still need to feed that calf.
Read this article…
Cross posted from my new fledgling blog Practical Microbes
 I can’t believe that I haven’t written about this amazing paper from MIT anthropologist, Heather Paxson. Heather has been doing research into the culture, business, and politics around cheese. In this paper (link below), she talks about the politics around cheese made from raw milk.
Raw milk, milk that is not pasteurized, is making a comeback (check out this article from the globe). And it flies in the convention of our predominantly sterile mentality (morality?) of antibiotics, pasteurization, anti-bacteria soaps, latex glove, masks, and hand sanitizers. Since the Ghost Map was drawn, we’ve been getting better and better at separating ourselves from microorganisms.
One big guy who changed how we deal with microorganisms was Loius Pasteur (ironically, I work a few blocks from a road named after him). Based on his work, we regularly “pasteurize” things like milk through high heat and pressure to kill all the microorganisms, good and bad.
Our pasteurized world has indeed been good to us health-wise. Indeed, my wife, a vet, knows all too well what could happen if one ingested spoiled raw milk. Why take a chance? Though I do think there might be a middle ground, what with all the understanding and science we have. But there’s something indicative when you have to sign a waiver to buy raw milk.
Which takes us to the raw milk cheese. The process of making cheese uses microbes to turn raw unpasteurized milk in to a safe and stable product. That’s why humans have made all sorts of “controlled spoilage” foods. And the microbes that grow on cheese can be beneficial to our health (much like folks now claim with live yoghurt).
But the idea of a product made from unpasteurized milk flies in the face of our ingrained Pasteurian ideals. Paxson analyzes the microbiopolitics that arises from this cognitive dissonance.
Paxson is not some anti-Pasteurian extremist, she knows that there’s a reason we keep an eye on the microbes on our food. She also knows that, at least with cheese making, worrying about raw milk does not make sense, considering the microbiology and tradition of cheese making. And the cheese maker she profiles is a great example of the balance of careful practice of microbiology and deep craft of cheese production.
In the past few years, there has been an increase in the numbers of reports regarding asthma, intestinal diseases, skin conditions, superbugs, and other health effects from a sterile, Pasteurian world gone too far. Paxson’s work fits in that discussion thread. To me, the discussion around raw milk cheese will do more (more so than raw milk alone) to awake us to a post-Pasteurian world where we understand the role of microbes in our life and food (check out this raw milk cheese manifesto, too).
And if you’re curious about practical uses of microbes and the future balance between man and bug, you’d read her article (download the PDF or go to Paxson’s site). And then let me know what you think of the coming Post-Pasteurian Age.
Image from Boston Globe
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