"There are some communities that are very unhealthy where the diversity is higher. Low diversity is not a universal marker. We found something that at first seemed surprising. That a healthy microbiome has lots of competition. These bugs are all going after the same food. In an unhealthy gut, on the other hand, you see tight cooperation - microorganisms are helping each other out."
"What happens is that a little mafia takes control. They're cooperating with each other. They have a very cozy little deal and they're crowding everybody out. In the study, the research team tested their model on several conditions - inflammatory bowel disease, colon cancer and a bacterial infection called C. diff. Each time, they saw this pattern."
Researchers have long recognized that gut microbiomes significantly impact health, but identifying markers of a healthy microbiome remains challenging. Traditional measures like microbial diversity prove unreliable, as some unhealthy communities exhibit high diversity while low diversity is not universally indicative of poor health. Dr. Martin Blaser's team at Rutgers University applied ecological principles to develop a new framework. They discovered that healthy microbiomes feature intense competition among microorganisms competing for the same resources. Conversely, unhealthy microbiomes display tight cooperation where dominant organisms form exclusive partnerships, effectively monopolizing resources and excluding other species. This pattern held consistent across multiple conditions including inflammatory bowel disease, colon cancer, and C. difficile infection, suggesting a universal principle for interpreting microbiome health.
Read at www.npr.org
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