Chronic bowel diseases such as Crohn‘s disease or ulcerative colitis continue to rise. Speculations and explanations regarding the causes of these lifestyle diseases (also known as “environmental diseases”) abound. Scientists at Kiel University have recently put forward a new theory explaining the onset of such lifestyle diseases, referred to as the “overfeeding hypothesis”.

According to this, our diet leads in many cases to an overabundance of nutrients which may affect our body’s entire microbiome. Gut microbes, for example, uncouple from their original host. Rather than continuing to feed off the body’s (=host’s) metabolic products, they now rely on their environment’s rich supply of nutrients. This may lead to an increased and unchecked growth of some bacterial species, resulting in an unbalanced microbiome.

The study’s starting point were findings of changes in marine ecosystems. In corals, a massive bacterial exodus from their host organisms was observed, namely in regions with excessive anthropogenic nutrient input. “In this connection between nutrient availability and the balance of bacteria-host relationships, we see a universal principle which goes way beyond the very specific example of corals,” explained Dr. Tim Lachnit of Kiel University.

In the case of corals, dissolution of the natural symbiosis of bacteria and host results in a disrupted balance of the microbiome and increased susceptibility to diseases. In the case of the human microbiome, the Kiel scientists assume a similar mechanism.

Whether and how a disturbed microbiome may be rebalanced remains to be seen. “In the future we will, for example, not only consider the known health benefits of fasting, but also its effects on the composition and function of the microbiome, and thus on the development of inflammatory diseases,” the specialist magazine LABO quotes the scientist Lachnit.

 

Sources:

https://www.labo.de/news/uebersaettigte-bakterien-vom-wirtsorganismus-entkoppelt-.htm

https://www.derstandard.de/story/2000103245195/zu-viel-essen-wie-uebersatte-bakterien-krankmachen

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